Search results for "Robots"
showing 10 items of 100 documents
Emergence of technostress among employees working with physical robots
2023
Despite the growing body of literature on technostress, there is limited knowledge about the emergence of technostress among people working with physical robots. In this paper, we aim to address this research gap by exploring how technostress emerges among employees working with physical robots. The study was based on qualitative online questionnaire responses from 197 present or previous users of robots at work. Based on our data, we identified several robot-related environmental conditions that contributed to perceived work-related stress. Our findings reveal that the emergence of technostress among employees working with physical robots has distinct characteristics and that the technostr…
A novel clustering-based algorithm for solving spatially-constrained robotic task sequencing problems
2021
The robotic task sequencing problem (RTSP) appears in various forms across many industrial applications and consists of developing an optimal sequence of motions to visit a set of target points defined in a task space. Developing solutions to problems involving complex spatial constraints remains challenging due to the existence of multiple inverse kinematic solutions and the requirements for collision avoidance. So far existing studies have been limited to relaxed RTSPs involving a small number of target points and relatively uncluttered environments. When extending existing methods to problems involving greater spatial constraints and large sets of target points, they either require subst…
3D models of humanoid soccer robot in USAR sim and robotics studio simulators
2008
This paper describes our experience in the simulation of humanoid soccer robots using two general purposes 3D simulators, namely USARSim and Microsoft Robotics Studio. We address the problem of the simulation of a soccer match among two teams of small humanoid robots in the RoboCup Soccer Kid-Size Humanoid competitions. The paper reports the implementation of the virtual models of the Robovie-M humanoid robot platform in the two simulators. Robovie-M was the robot used by our team "Artisti" in the RoboCup 2006 competitions. This paper focuses on the procedures needed to implement the virtual models of the robot and in the details of the models. We describe experiments assessing the feasibi…
Remote programming of network robots within the UJI Industrial Robotics Telelaboratory: FPGA vision and SNRP network protocol
2009
This paper presents the UJI Industrial Robotics Telelaboratory, which lets Ph.D. and Master’s degree students perform robotics and computer vision tele-experiments. By using this system, students are able to program experiments remotely via the Web, in order to combine the use of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) to provide real-time vision processing, a conveyor belt, and a Motoman industrial manipulator. This paper introduces the novel SNRP protocol (i.e., Simple Network Robot Protocol), which permits the integration of network robots and sensors within an e-learning platform in a simple and reliable manner. As long as the students are able to interact remotely with a real robotic sc…
HR1 Robot: An Assistant for Healthcare Applications
2022
According to the World Health Organization1,2 the percentage of healthcare dependent population, such as elderly and people with disabilities, among others, will increase over the next years. This trend will put a strain on the health and social systems of most countries. The adoption of robots could assist these health systems in responding to this increased demand, particularly in high intensity and repetitive tasks. In a previous work, we compared a Socially Assistive Robot (SAR) with a Virtual Agent (VA) during the execution of a rehabilitation task. The SAR consisted of a humanoid R1 robot, while the Virtual Agent represented its simulated counter-part. In both cases, the agents evalua…
Social robots and therapeutic adherence: a new challenge in pediatric asthma?
2020
Social Robots are used in different contexts and, in healthcare, they are better known as Socially Assistive Robots. In the context of asthma, the use of Socially Assistive Robots has the potential to increase motivation and engagement to treatment. Other positive roles proposed for Socially Assistive Robots are to provide education, training regarding treatments, and feedback to patients. This review evaluates emerging interventions for improving treatment adherence in pediatric asthma, focusing on the possible future role of social robots in the clinical practice.
In Situ Representations and Access Consciousness in Neural Blackboard or Workspace Architectures
2018
Phenomenal theories of consciousness assert that consciousness is based on specific neural correlates in the brain, which can be separated from all cognitive functions we can perform. If so, the search for robot consciousness seems to be doomed. By contrast, theories of functional or access consciousness assert that consciousness can be studied only with forms of cognitive access, given by cognitive processes. Consequently, consciousness and cognitive access cannot be fully dissociated. Here, the global features of cognitive access of consciousness are discussed based on neural blackboard or (global) workspace architectures, combined with content addressable or "in situ" representations as …
Social networks and robot companions: Technology, ethics, and science fiction
2019
Information technologies have become part of our everyday lives and are increasingly acting as intermediaries in our workplaces and personal relationships or even substituting them. This growing interaction with machines poses several questions about which we have no previous experience, nor can we reliably predict how they will influence the evolution of society. This has led to the convergence of technoscience and humanities in an ethical debate that is starting to bear fruit, not only with the setting of regulations and standards, but also with educational initiatives in university teaching, professional improvement, and the conformation of public opinion. Interestingly, science fiction …
Movement Detection with Event-Based Cameras: Comparison with Frame-Based Cameras in Robot Object Tracking Using Powerlink Communication
2018
Event-based cameras are not common in industrial applications despite the fact that they can add multiple advantages for applications with moving objects. In comparison with frame-based cameras, the amount of generated data is very low while keeping the main information in the scene. For an industrial environment with interconnected systems, data reduction becomes very important to avoid network congestion and provide faster response time. However, the use of new sensors as event-based cameras is not common since they do not usually provide connectivity to industrial buses. This work develops a network node based on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), including data acquisition and trac…
Automation, workers' skills and job satisfaction.
2020
When industrial robots are adopted by firms in a local labor market, some workers are displaced and become unemployed. Other workers that are not directly affected by automation may however fear that these new technologies might replace their working tasks in the future. This fear of a possible future replacement is important because it negatively affects workers’ job satisfaction at present. This paper studies the extent to which automation affects workers’ job satisfaction, and whether this effect differs for high- versus low-skilled workers. The empirical analysis uses microdata for several thousand workers in Norway from the Working Life Barometer survey for the period 2016–2019, combin…