ASIMOV2021: Workshop on Adaptive Social Interaction and MOVement for assistive and rehabilitation robotics online Singapore, Singapore, November 12, 2021

ASIMOV Adaptive Social Interaction and MOVement for assistive and rehabilitation robotics will be held the 12th of November in conjunction with the Thirteenth International Conference on Social Robotics, 10-13 November 2021, Singapore.

Abstract

Endowing robots with learning and online behavioral adaptation abilities is a key objective for enabling natural and efficient human robot interaction, especially in the areas of assistive and rehabilitation robotics. Nevertheless, as one of Asimov's novels pointed out in The Complete Robot (1982), if a robot, such as Lenny, is given the ability to learn, it will inevitably make mistakes before adapting itself. One of the critical issues is thus to design robot learning abilities that lead to a behavior that meets three criteria at the same time: efficiency, acceptability and security for the human. The ASIMOV workshop will constitute a unique opportunity to gather roboticists and computer scientists to present a variety of current approaches aiming at endowing social robots with learning abilities, enhanced cognitive and social abilities, and discuss their potential to meet these criteria. This will permit to analyze the current state of the art and of its possible real-world applications in assistive and rehabilitation robotics

SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT

Isaac Asimov, the famous Russian-American science-fiction writer (but also scientific, biochemical popularizer) was a sort of soothsayer. Never before, the robots for which he formulated the famous Three Laws of Robotics (which should prevent robots from harming humans) and which appear in so many of his stories and novels (the Robot Cycle) have been so present in reality. Robots got out of the industry's cages and have started to find wide applicability in many different fields, spanning from entertainment to education and assistance where they operate in strict contact with human beings. Social robots are receiving more success in the above-mentioned fields since their social and human-like behavior based on the adaptation with respect to the environment and to human emotions and movements during collaborative activities bring people to interact with them close to the way they would interact with human beings. Despite the recognized potential and usefulness of social robots for assistive purposes, people are still worried about their utilization. Hence, when designing social robots behavior and structure, it is of paramount importance to consider all the aspects that can affect their acceptability, from ethical aspects to physical and psychological safety to security aspect related to privacy violation, etc. Additionally, it is necessary to enhance the ability to adapt on the y to the users' behavior, needs and motivations. Creating robotic systems capable of correctly modeling and recognizing human behavior and intention and of adapting their behavior to the user under the above-mentioned constraints and the ASIMOV's laws is a very critical task, especially in the domain of assistive and social robotics and when working with vulnerable user populations.

OBJECTIVES

The workshop's main goal is to figure out how we can design and control robots whose behavior during interaction with humans shall adapt in a way that is:

• efficient for the assigned task;

• natural, understandable and acceptable for the human; 

• safe and secure in terms of human physical and psychological integrity. 

The workshop will constitute an opportunity to present a variety of current approaches aiming at endowing social assistive robots with learning abilities, and discuss their acceptability and efficiency with respect to these criteria.

List of Topics

• Social Robots;
• Cognitive Robotics;
• Assistive and Rehabilitation Robotics;
• Human-Robot Interaction;
• Ethics of Human-Robot Interaction;
• Learning;
• Decision Making and Planning;
• Online Adaptive Behavior;
• Multimodal interfaces;
• Adaptive control strategies;
• Bio-cooperative systems;
• Psychophysiological and biomechanical assessment;
• Activity and Intention Recognition;
• Ambient Assisted Living;
• Acceptability and Personalization;
• Security and safety in Human-Robot Interaction;

Target Audience

This workshop is intended as a forum for a broad audience, which spans from social and assistive robotics, adaptation and personalization in Social HRI, innovative technologies for education and robot-assisted clinical applications. The workshop should be a place to exchange opinions, to discuss innovative ideas and to get hints and suggestions on ongoing research, therefore contributing to tackle unresolved issues. The proposed topic brings together researchers working on user behavior and intention detection, human-robot interaction, social and assistive robotics, control interfaces, learning, and ethical and safety issues in human-machine interaction, among others. A large scientific community is involved in such research fields.

Submission Guidelines

We welcome prospective participants to submit either full papers (up to 6 pages) or extended abstracts (up to 2 pages). 

Papers can be on research that the authors would like to discuss during the workshop, especially encouraging papers on new ideas or research that the authors plan to conduct. Possible topics of the submissions will cover a wide view of the state of the art. 

Workshop papers must clearly indicate that they are part of the ASIMOV workshop. 

We strongly encourage workshop participants to present during paper presentation demos and videos showing their experiments and achievements. All material collected during the Workshop, such as video, slides, papers, etc., will be made available on the workshop website upon approval of the authors.

Templates and Procedure for Paper Submissions

It is highly recommended to use the Springer LNCS/LNAI style for the layout. Detailed instructions for paper submission are available on the conference web site (http://www.colips.org/conferences/icsr2021/wp/). LNCS style templates are available on the Springer LNCS website. Each paper will receive two reviews. Accepted papers require that at least one of the authors register to the workshop. 

All submitted papers will be reviewed by two reviewers. The abstracts of the accepted papers will appear on the workshop website. 

Authors will be able to submit a PDF copy through EasyChair.

Important dates

• Deadline for Paper Submission:  October 20th, 2021
• Paper Acceptance Notification:  October 30th, 2021
• Camera Ready Paper:  November 7th, 2021
• Main Conference Date:  November 10th–13th, 2021
• Workshop Date:  November 12th, 2021

Committees

Organizing committee

• Mariacarla Staffa, Department of Physics, University of Naples Parthenope, Italy, mariacarla.staffa@uniparthenope.it
• Mehdi Khamassi, Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Sorbonne Universite / CNRS, France, mehdi.khamassi@upmc.fr
• Francesca Cordella, Research Unit of Advanced Robotics and Human-centred Technologies, Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, Italy, f.cordella@unicampus.it

Program committee

• Antonio Andriella (Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (CSIC-UPC), Spain)
• Salvatore Anzalone (Université Paris 8, France)
• Barbara Bruno (EPFL, Switzerland)
• Filippo Cavallo (University of Florence, Italy)
• Amedeo Cesta (National Research Council, Italy)
• Riccardo De Benedictis  (National Research Council, Italy)
• Alessandro Di Nuovo (Sheffield Hallam University, UK)
• Ouriel Grynszpan (Université Paris-Saclay, France)
• Serena Ivaldi (INRIA, France)
• Fulvio Mastrogiovanni (University of Genoa, Italy)
• Ghilès Mostafaoui  (Université de Cergy-Pontoise · ETIS Research Center)
• Andrea Orlandini (National Research Council, Italy)
• Costas Tzafestas (National Technical University of Athens, Greece)

Invited Speakers

• Speaker 1: Prof. Maja Mataric, University of of Southern California (Los Angeles, USA)
• Speaker 3: Agnieszka Wykowska, Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy)
• Speaker 2: Chandra Shruti - University of Waterloo (Canada) 

Publication

Selected papers will be invited to submit an extended/revised version of the papers for a special issue in a recognized international journal. We will propose to either International Journal of Social Robotics or Paladyn Journal of Behavioural Robotics or Journal of Healthcare Engineering or IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics.

Venue

The conference will be held online.

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to: mariacarla.staffa@uniparthenope.it, mehdi.khamassi@upmc.fr, f.cordella@unicampus.it