2024-3-7 16:00～17:00 Hybrid @UT Eng. Blg 2 room 31B join online

Modifying Social and Spatial boundaries through Human-Robot Interactions

Dr. Anne-Lise Jouen, University of Burgundy, France

Abstract: Interactions between humans and robots can be utilized across various contexts such as healthcare, education, and rehabilitation. This presentation will explore two distinct perspectives on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). First, we will introduce our work on social interactions with robots (human-human-robot interactions), derived from a participatory science project conducted in a nursing home (EPHAD), aimed at enhancing interactions among the elderly through the use of a robotic narrative assistant. This preliminary study revealed a gradual increase in interactions among the elderly, along with a significant interest in robotic technologies. The second aspect of this presentation will focus on a very different facet of HRI with a more neuroscientific perspective: robotic embodiment (i.e., being placed in the position of a robot, seeing through its eyes). This will delve into the impact of robotic embodiment on our spatial representations. Through several studies involving robotic telepresence and VR embodiment, we have demonstrated the substantial impact of these technologies on our perceptions of our bodies and space. These diverse studies will be discussed within the broader context of evaluating the impact of emerging technologies using reliable metrics, including neuroscientific and psychometric measurements.

Biography: Dr. Anne-Lise Jouen obtained a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Lyon, specializing in neuroimaging. Although initially focused on language and speech, she harbors a deep passion for new technologies, particularly robotics, having completed her doctorate at a robotics laboratory (Dr. Peter Dominey's Robot Cognition Lab). Throughout her various postdoctoral positions (at the University of Paris, Tokyo, and Geneva), she has endeavored to develop an approach combining neuroscientific and psychometric measures to objectively assess the impact of new technologies in the fields of education and rehabilitation. Her recent work at the University of Burgundy has led her to explore the complex notion of the Self and the impact of robotic and VR technologies on our spatial and bodily representations.

2024-2-24 14:00～15:00 Hybrid @UT Eng. Blg 2 room 231 join online

Exploring Child-robot Interaction: Insights, Roles, and Challenges

Prof. Shruti Chandra, Specially Appointed Assistant Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.

Research Fellow, University of Waterloo, Canada.

Upcoming Assistant Professor, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada.

Abstract: While we may soon have AI-based artists or scientists, we are nowhere near autonomous robot plumbers. The human brain still largely outperforms robotic algorithms in most tasks, using computational elements 7 orders of magnitude slower than their artificial counterparts. Similarly, current large scale machine learning algorithms require millions of examples and close proximity to power plants, compared to the brain's few examples and 20W consumption. We study how modern nonlinear systems tools, such as contraction analysis, virtual dynamical systems, and adaptive nonlinear control can yield quantifiable insights about collective computation and learning in large physical systems and dynamical networks. For instance, we show how stable implicit sparse regularization can be exploited online in adaptive prediction or control to select relevant dynamic models out of plausible physically-based candidates, and how most elementary results on gradient descent and optimization based on convexity can be replaced by much more general results based on Riemannian contraction.
Time permitting, we will discuss a new approach to dense associative memories and transformers directly inspired by astrocyte biology. This may be the first contribution to AI of neuroscience results from the last 50 years.

Biography: Dr. Shruti Chandra holds a Joint PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland and Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal.  Her work focuses on using interactive technologies such as social robots and screen-based interfaces to support people’s well-being, emphasising real-world applications. Her research is deeply rooted in three essential domains: human-centred design, autonomous and interactive systems, and the dynamics of social interactions.

2024-1-24 10:00～11:30 Hybrid @UT Eng. Blg 2 room 232 join online

Stable adaptation and learning

Jean-Jacques Slotine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract: While we may soon have AI-based artists or scientists, we are nowhere near autonomous robot plumbers. The human brain still largely outperforms robotic algorithms in most tasks, using computational elements 7 orders of magnitude slower than their artificial counterparts. Similarly, current large scale machine learning algorithms require millions of examples and close proximity to power plants, compared to the brain's few examples and 20W consumption. We study how modern nonlinear systems tools, such as contraction analysis, virtual dynamical systems, and adaptive nonlinear control can yield quantifiable insights about collective computation and learning in large physical systems and dynamical networks. For instance, we show how stable implicit sparse regularization can be exploited online in adaptive prediction or control to select relevant dynamic models out of plausible physically-based candidates, and how most elementary results on gradient descent and optimization based on convexity can be replaced by much more general results based on Riemannian contraction.
Time permitting, we will discuss a new approach to dense associative memories and transformers directly inspired by astrocyte biology. This may be the first contribution to AI of neuroscience results from the last 50 years.

Biography: Jean-Jacques Slotine is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Information Sciences, Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Director of the Nonlinear Systems Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983, at age 23. After working at Bell Labs in the computer research department, he joined the faculty at MIT in 1984. Professor Slotine teaches and conducts research in the areas of dynamical systems, robotics, control theory, computational neuroscience, and systems biology. One of the most cited researchers in systems science, he was a member of the French National Science Council from 1997 to 2002, a member of Singapore’s A*STAR SigN Advisory Board from 2007 to 2010, a Distinguished Faculty at Google AI from 2019 to 2023, and has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Italian Institute of Technology since 2010.

2023-12-21 13:00～14:00 Hybrid @UT Eng. Bld 2 room 31A  join online

「高齢者・障害者の健康・医療・福祉機器開発研究」
A study of health, medical, and assistive devices for the elderly and the disabled.

田中敏明, 北海道科学大学・東京大学先端科学技術研究センター/高齢社会総合研究機構

Abstract: 約30年以上にわたり高齢者および障害者・患者のためのリハビリテーション科学および生活支援のための人間工学および福祉工学と関連させながら研究を遂行してきた。この間、一貫して、臨床現場において高齢化に伴う運動・感覚・脳機能障害を福祉工学の観点から支援する手法と技術の研究を実施してきた。 具体的な研究としては、「高齢者のための感覚フィードバック型バランストレーニング研究」があり、立位バランス検査トレーニング用医療機器を産官学連携のもとで特許実用化し、製品化への道を拓き臨床で使用されている。次に、「高次脳機能障害における空間無視者の日常生活評価訓練システムの研究」があり、これは、視空間の認知障害を有する患者は歩行や車椅子操作に障害を来すためこのバリアーを解消するうえでバーチャルリアリティ（VR）における３次元視覚ディスプレイを利用して空間無視の症状を解析するとともに、リハビリ手法を開発した。これらの研究は、「遠隔リハビリテーションシステム（総務省SCOPE）」や認知症患者のための「車椅子操作注意喚起システム開発研究」へ発展している。その他に「産・官・学連携研究」の成果として、NEDO等による支援を受けて凍結路面用ワンタッチ式杖、腰痛予防用除雪器具、農作業軽労化用具など多くの福祉用具の実用化・製品化に地域貢献している。 本講演では、転倒予防リハトレーニング機器、バーチャルリアリティ技術を用いたリハビリテーション、その他、産官学連携研究等で製品化を目指している医療福祉機器に関して講演する。

Biography: 田中　敏明　(タナカ　トシアキ)　理学療法士、博士（工学）、 人間工学専門家
1984年　北海道大学医療技術短期大学部理学療法学科卒業
札幌医科大学附属病院にて理学療法士勤務
1992年　ニューヨーク大学・大学院・理学療法学科・修士課程
　　　　 病態運動学専攻・修了, Master of Arts (Physical Therapy)
1999年　札幌医科大学保健医療学部理学療法学科助教授
2003年 マサチューセッツ工科大学客員研究員
2006年 札幌市立大学デザイン学部教授
2008年　東京大学先端科学技術研究センター・特任教授
2015年　北海道科学大保健医療学部理学療法学科教授、東京大学高齢 社会総合研究機構特任教授　
2017年　フランス国立社会科学高等研究院日仏財団シニアフェロー
2020年　東京大学高齢社会総合研究機構シニアプログラムアドバイザー（現在に至る

2023-10-19 15:00～16:00 Hybrid @UT room Eng. 2 room join online

Human augmentation at Kyocera's Future Design Laboratory

Dr. Jacqueline Urakami, Kyocera's Future Design Research Laboratory, Japan

Abstract: At Kyocera's Future Design Research Laboratory situated in Yokohama, we are advancing R&D for human augmentation technologies, with the aim of achieving a seamless integration between "humans" and "technology." Human augmentation is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses various methods, technologies, and applications designed to harmoniously merge the distinctive capabilities of both individuals and machines. In this presentation, we will provide an introduction to three innovative systems that have been developed within our Laboratory: 1) A walk sensing and coaching system, designed to enhance proper walking posture and technique. 2) A physical avatar, dedicated to mitigating the challenges of isolation during remote work. This avatar facilitates smooth communication akin to in-office interactions, thereby fostering effective communication among employees and teams dispersed across different locations. 3) Perception and cognition augmentation, culminating in a device capable of capturing and reproducing audio conversations missed during initial encounters. Furthermore, the presentation will delve into the intricate challenges associated with social signal processing for human augmentation, particularly when applied to real-world scenarios.

Biography: In 2022, Jacqueline Urakami became a researcher at Kyocera’s Future Design Research Laboratory. Her primary area lies in the field of Human Augmentation, with a specific focus on exploring the impact of human augmentation on human performance. Jacqueline Urakami received a Master's degree in Psychology from Dresden University (Germany) in 1998 and completed a Ph.D. in Psychology from Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany) in 2002. Following the completion of her doctoral studies, she spent two years as a Humboldt Fellow at Keio University's Shonan Fujisawa Campus, where she conducted research in interface design utilizing eye tracking technology. Throughout her career, Dr. Urakami has amassed valuable experience in Japan, including teaching roles at Keio University and a position as a Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Her research endeavors have been predominantly concentrated in the domains of Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction.

2023-8-22 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT room Eng. 2 room 233 join online

Challenges in Social Robotics: Long-term Interaction, Personalization and Trust

Prof. Adriana Tapus, ENSTA Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France

Abstract: Social robots are more and more part of our daily lives, and the design of their behaviors greatly affects the way people interact with them. To ensure optimal engagement, long-term adaptation and personalized robot's behavior to the user's specific needs and profile should be envisaged. One important social construct to consider is humor. Humor has been shown to reduce communication barriers and enhance interpersonal relationships. Developing a robot with the ability to express various forms of humor can enhance its naturalness and effectiveness in human-robot interactions. This presentation will explore innovative perception and interaction capabilities and address the challenges raised by inter-individual differences and intra-individual variability over time.

Biography: Adriana TAPUS is Full Professor in the Autonomous Systems and Robotics Lab in the Computer Science and System Engineering Department (U2IS), at ENSTA Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France. Since 2019, she is the Director of the Doctoral School of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris). Prof. Tapus serves as one of the member of the Women in Science and Engineering Committee at IP Paris. In 2011, she obtained the French Habilitation (HDR) for her thesis entitled “Towards Personalized Human-Robot Interaction”. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland in 2005. She worked as an Associate Researcher at the University of Southern California (USC), where she was among the pioneers on the development of socially assistive robotics, also participating to activity in machine learning, human sensing, and human-robot interaction. Her main interests are on long-term learning (i.e. in particular in interaction with humans), human modeling, and on-line robot behavior adaptation to external environmental factors. She worked on various applications going from socially assistive applications for helping people with physical and cognitive impairments (e.g., children with autism, the elderly, people suffering of sleep disorders, people in rehabilitation after a stroke) to autonomous vehicles. Prof. Tapus is a Senior Editor of International Journal on Robotics Research (IJRR), an Associate Editor for International Journal of Social Robotics (IJSR), an Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), and Associate Editor for Frontiers in Robotics and AI. She is member of the program and steering committee of several major robotics conferences (e.g., General Chair 2019 of HRI, Program Chair 2018 of HRI, General Chair 2017 of ECMR). Prof. Tapus was the Keynote Speaker at several workshops and conferences. She has more than 200 research publications. She was elected in 2016 as one of the 25 women in robotics you need to know about. Prof. Tapus received the Romanian Academy Award for her contributions in assistive robotics in 2010 and in 2022 she was awarded by the French Prime Minister the Knight of the Academic Palms. She is member of IEEE, AAAI and ACM. She is also the coordinator and member of multiple EU and French National research grants (e.g., EU ENRICHME, EU RAICAM, Bots4Education). Further details about her research and activities can be found at https://perso.ensta-paris.fr/~tapus/eng/index.html

2023-7-25 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT or join online

Intersectionality and AI: Gender, Age, and Everything in Between

Prof. Katie Seaborn, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Abstract: People are diverse. People create machines. People may or may not embed human diversity within those machines. Even when they do, they may not realize it or foretell the implications. In this talk, I will introduce the notion of intersectionality and fundamental "sections" and "intersections," especially gender and age, and how these relate to research and practice in robotics and AI. I will cover case studies from my own work on humanoid robots, translation in natural language processing, and computer voice.

Biography: : Prof. Katie Seaborn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics at Tokyo Institute of Technology. Since 2020, she has led the Aspirational Computing Lab at Tokyo Tech. She currently holds the positions of Visiting Researcher at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP) and Honorary Researcher at the UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC). She previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at RIKEN AIP, Co-operative Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo (2019-20), JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo (2018-19), and Research Fellow at UCLIC (2017-18). She received her Ph.D. in Human Factors from the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering (MIE) and graduated from the Collaborative Program in Knowledge Media Design (KMDI) at the University of Toronto (2016). Her research interests include interaction design with voice-based agents, critical computing perspectives on robots and gender, inclusive design with older adults, and technologies for psychological well-being. Her seminal work on gamification has been cited over 2700 times.

2023-6-27 14:00～15:00 Hybrid @UT room Eng. 2 room 31A or join online

Modularity in Aerial Robotics and its Applications

Prof. Moju Zhao, the University of Tokyo, Japan

Abstract: During the last decade, research on aerial robots has become significantly active. Among the developments of the platform, several modular designs have been proposed to offer the reconfigurable capability for advanced maneuvering in midair. In this talk, we will present the development of our original modular aerial robots, which involves the methodology of modular design, modelling and control, and motion planning. Furthermore, the unique aerial application, such as snake-like maneuvering and manipulation in midair will be also introduced.

Biography: Prof. Moju Zhao is currently an Assistant Professor at The University of Tokyo. He received Doctor Degree from the Department of Mechano-Informatics, The University of Tokyo, 2018. His research interests are mechanical design, modelling and control, motion planning, and vision based recognition in aerial robotics. His main achievement is the articulated aerial robots which have received several awards in conference and journal, including the Best Paper Award in IEEE ICRA 2018.

2023-5-16 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT or online

At the frontiers of biomechanics and robotics

Bruno Watier, LAAS, France

Abstract: This presentation will be an opportunity to give an overview of current projects at LAAS-CNRS at the interface of robotics and biomechanics. We will see achievements in the field of gait simulation, exoskeleton design or human-robot interaction.

Biography: Bruno Watier is full-time professor. He joined JRL as CNRS delegate in 2023. Since 1999, he has been Associate Professor at Universite de Toulouse 3 (UT3), LAAS-CNRS laboratory, France, in the Gepetto team. He received the Ph.D. degree in mechanics from ENSAM in 1997 and the Habilitation degree from UT3 in 2015. His research focuses on human movement analalysis, motor control and human-robot interaction. He organized several conferences and workshops related to biomechanics. Bruno Watier currently leads 4 french national ANR project. He is president of the Société de Biomécanique and leads a major degree in sport performance.

2023-4-18 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT Blg 2 room 223 or online

A Medical Robot for Physical-HRI based Nasopharyngeal Swab Sampling

Prof. Tianwei Zhang, Chinese University of Hongkong, China

Abstract: In these three years, nasopharyngeal (NP) swab sampling and reverse-transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test techniques have proven to be very effective and reliable tests for the early detection of COVID-19 infected individuals. However, this highly reliable RT-PCR testing is difficult to operate and must be operated by a dedicated swab and trained medical personnel. In this work, we present a robot that operates nasopharyngeal swabs for RT-PCR sampling. We designed new hardware system and developed advanced 3D vision and force sensing hybrid perception algorithms for the robot to accurately locate the nostril position, manipulate the swab into the nostril and then carefully advance the swab along the inferior nasal tract to the designated sampling position in the posterior nasal cavity. The experimental results of more than 8,000 volunteer experiments indicates the proposed robot PCR sampling results are as accurate as human. Questionnaires show that our robot NP swab sampling is more comfortable than manual sampling.

Biography: Prof. Tianwei Zhang is currently an Associate Research Scientist at Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, Research Assistant Professor in the Chinese University of Hongkong, Shenzhen. He received Doctor Degree from the Department of Mechano-Informatics, The University of Tokyo, 2019. His research interests are visual manipulation and dynamic SLAM. He has published several articles in ICRA/IROS/RAL.

2023-2-16 16:00～17:00 Hybrid @UT or online

Adaptive Dialogue Strategy for Teachable Social Robots

Rachel Love, Monash University, Australia

Abstract: Social robots have great potential when used in an educational setting, with the ability to deliver personalised, one-on-one interactions for students. Robots that take on the role of the student, while the student takes on the role of teacher, have the ability to improve learning outcomes through increased engagement in, and responsibility for the teaching task. Social robots may also benefit from adapting their behaviours to meet the needs and preferences of individual users. The research presented in this talk uses a reinforcement learning approach to adapt the dialogue choices that the teachable robot makes at different points in the teaching conversation. This teaching interaction uses the Curiosity Notebook, a flexible online teaching platform that helps students learn about a simple classification task. The aim of this research is to improve the learning outcomes and engagement of the student, through an adaptive, personalised approach. This talk will discuss the motivations and findings of this research.

Biography: Rachel is a third year PhD candidate in the Robotics lab within the department of Electrical and Computer systems Engineering at Monash University. She obtained her Bachelor’s in Biomedical Engineering with Honours from the University of Auckland. This was followed by several years of industry experience working for the Auckland-based start-up Soul Machines as a Conversation Engineer, developing dialogues and conversational emotional and behaviours for their artificially and emotionally intelligent Digital Humans. Her particular research interests lie in conversational AI, dialogue modelling, and human-machine interaction.

2023-1-31 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT or online

Interacting with Socially Interactive Agent

Prof. Catherine Pelachaud, Sorbonne University, France

Abstract: Our research work focuses on modeling Socially Interactive Agents, i.e. agents capable of interacting socially with human partners, of communicating verbally and non-verbally, of showing emotions but also of adapting their behaviors to favor the engagement of their partners during the interaction. As partner of an interaction, SIA should be able to adapt its multimodal behaviors and conversational strategies to optimize the engagement of its human interlocutors. We have also been working on endowing an agent to respond to social touch by a human and to touch the human to convey different intentions and emotions. We have developed models to equip these agents with these communicative and social abilities. In this talk, I will present the works we have been conducted.

Biography: Catherine Pelachaud (CNRS-ISIR) is Director of Research in the laboratory ISIR, Sorbonne University. Her research interest includes socially interactive agent, nonverbal communication (face, gaze, gesture and touch), and adaptive mechanisms in interaction. With her research team, she has been developing an interactive virtual agent platform, Greta, that can display emotional and communicative behaviors.  She has participated in the organization of international conferences such as IVA, ACII and AAMAS. She is and was associate editors of several journals among which IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems and International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. She is co-editor of the ACM handbook on socially interactive agents (2021-22).

2022-12-21 17:00～18:00 Hybrid @UT or online

Sharing scientific sports training expertise by video motion capture, a time-series database and open source visualization tools

Dr. Cesar Hernandez Reyes, the University of Tokyo, Japan

Abstract: Sports and exercise are valuable habits. Having a training goal can improve a person's mental and physical health. Such training goals can be achieved more effectively with information technologies. For example, a person can set quantitative goals by visualizing their muscle forces and joint motions. However, obtaining this data is complex because motion capture (Mocap), force plates, EMG sensors, etc, are costly and require technical expertise to use. Furthermore, analyzing biomechanical data requires the knowledge of sports coaches, clinicians, etc. This talk will introduce ongoing research which aims to build a system by which scientific training can be accessible to the general public. This system combines markerless video Mocap and a time-series database platform optimized for managing and visualizing human musculoskeletal data. Finally, this talk will discuss ideas to identify the difference between how an expert athlete chooses their motions compared with a novice by using Inverse Reinforcement Learning.

Biography: Cesar Hernandez Reyes is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Human Motion Data Science lab, Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo since October 2021. He is currently working on the democratization of scientific sports training by developing technologies to bridge the expertise gap between engineers, sports scientists and general users. He obtained his Doctoral and Masters Degree in Systems and Control Engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2021 and 2018, respectively. Also, he obtained his Bachelor degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Universidad de Monterrey in Mexico. His previous research experience includes the computational modeling of the olfactory search behavior of the silk moth and the fusion of probabilistic and bio-inspired olfactory search algorithms for application in mobile robots.

2022-11-2 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @TUAT GVLab or online

Modeling, design and control of soft robotics systems: a tour of Defrost team's research

Dr. Quentin Peyron, INRIA, France

Abstract: Soft robotics systems consist in flexible structures that are deformed with large displacements to produce motion and perform various tasks. Due to their intrinsic compliance, they are particularly suited for applications involving narrow and cluttered environments and physical interactions with humans. However, this compliance also induces unique challenges and open research questions: Their kinemato-static and dynamic modeling in real-time, the exploration of their large design space, and their control. The Defrost team of INRIA and CRIStAL in Lille has developed expertise in these three aspects. I will present our recent works on efficient finite element and Cosserat beam models for soft robots interacting with their surroundings, and the associated software developments through the simulation platform and consortium SOFA. I will then show some results on soft robot design, using evolutionary optimization algorithms and anisotropic meta-materials, as well as some of the prototypes developed by the team. Finally, I will present our progress on soft robot control using non-linear control theories and AI and will finish with perspectives for the years to come.

Biography: Dr. Quentin Peyron is a research scientist at the INRIA institute, France, working with the Defrost team. After obtaining an engineering degree in mechatronics from INSA Strasbourg, and a master in robotics from the University of Strasbourg, he obtained a PhD in robotics from the University of Bourgogne Franche Comté. During his PhD, he worked in co-supervision with the ICube (Strasbourg) and FEMTO-ST (Besançon) laboratories on the modeling, analysis, and design of slender and thin continuum robots for minimally invasive surgery. He also collaborated with the MSRL team of ETH Zürich on magnetic continuum robots. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Continuum Robotics Lab of the University of Toronto from 2020 to 2021, where he worked on tendon-driven continuum robots. During his Post-Doc, he received the Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award from the University of Toronto. He joined INRIA in January 2022. Dr. Peyron is a reviewer for IEEE RA-L and T-RO journals, as well as for Mechanisms and Machine Theory and Autonomous Robots. His research interests are the modeling, design, and control of continuum and soft robots, and the development of eco-designed soft robotics for industrial applications.

2022-10-20 15:00～16:00 Hybrid @UT Eng. 2 room 232 or online

A Career in Corporate Robotics Research

Dr. Katsu Yamane, Path Robotics, USA

Abstract: This talk is a personal reflection upon my career of the past 14 years working in robotics at corporate research labs of Disney, Honda, Bosch, and now Path Robotics. I will first present my thoughts on how the size, industry and culture of a company determine how its R&D department operates and how, in turn, your experience as a researcher is affected. I will then illustrate different roles of corporate research by showing examples of how projects are initiated, managed, and transferred (or shelved). Finally, I will introduce Path Robotics' technology and why I believe we can become a (rare) successful robotics company. Hopefully this talk will help students and young researchers choose their future careers in robotics, whether it be academia, industry, or entrepreneur.

Biography: Dr. Katsu Yamane is currently a Principal Research Scientist at Path Robotics Inc., a late-stage startup specializing in autonomous welding technology. He has held research scientist positions at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, Honda Research Institute USA, and Bosch Research North America. Prior to moving to industry, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and a faculty member at the University of Tokyo where he also received his PhD in mechanical engineering in 2002. Dr. Yamane's research experience spans from manipulation planning and control to human motion analysis and biomechanics. He has also been active in the academic community as an editor and organizer of various journals and conferences as well as an author of over 100 peer-reviewed technical publications.

2022-9-27 11:00～12:00 Hybrid @UT Eng. 2 room 233 or online

Embodiment and Explainable Behaviors for Teaming Up with Human-Centered Robots

Prof. Luis Sentis, U. Texas at Austin, USA

Abstract: In this talk I will first delve into control architectures and embodiment for legged manipulators such as NASA's Valkyrie humanoid robot and other custom-built bipeds and humanoid robots. Emphasis will be placed on trajectory generation, dynamic walking and trajectory tracking using whole-body prioritized multi-level task control and model predictive control. I will then explain key ideas on training neural networks to learn the physical outcome of a commanded goal in terms of their physical success given the interaction environment. Predicting if a robot will encounter collisions, singularities, or balance problems at runtime is key to provide feedback to human operators as a means to explain the robot's physical behavior before task execution. We will show how this property can be used in combination with a cognitive architecture to have natural spoken interactions between human users and robots. In the next part of the talk, I will discuss teaming up with robots by employing imitation learning techniques and the use of thin-film epidermal electrodes for brain activity sensing. Finally, I will discuss our current efforts in human autonomy teaming in tasks such as indoor and outdoor object search with mixed teams of robots and  humans.

Biography: Luis Sentis is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and executive member of Good Systems where he heads the Human-Centered Robotics Laboratory, focusing on embodiment, motion planning, and control of human-centered robots such as legged robots, humanoids and exoskeleton systems. More recently he leads and collaborates in new projects regarding multi-robot search in indoor and outdoor environments, perceptual legged navigation in dynamic and crowded environments, and the use of wearable brain sensors for human factor studies. In 2015 he co-founded Apptronik, a company building next generation humanoid avatars.

2022-7-27 11:00～12:30JST Hybrid (contact us to join in person) Join online

N. Zaidi (Strate, France)

Impacts of SF imaginaries on robots design: low diversity of productions and how to better design through imaginaries?

Abstract: The increasing development of digital technologies such as social robotics in the last decades has already shown some of its social limits. Many studies have focused on the negative impacts of the technocentric nature of the technological artefacts design whose meaning and usefulness are not obvious for the end users, and whose introduction into real-life ecosystems can disrupt pre-existing organizations. Participatory approaches have been developed to take greater account of the complexity of the real world and the diversity of stakeholders by involving them further into the design process. Although they allow to create products that are better adapted to the environmental and human constraints, these approaches nonetheless seem to carry a bias specific to new technologies: the existence for all stakeholders (roboticists, designers or end users) of strong imaginaries related to technological objects that mainly come from Science-Fiction. In a context of social, environmental and health crisis where dystopian fictions about technology become a norm, the question of the influence of imaginaries on the design of technologies arrises. How do these imaginaries impact the design process? Why do they seem particularly important in HRI and social robotics? Which design methods can be developed to take this bias into account in the design process, and even better design through those imaginaries? This talk aims to share a piece of reflection about this topic and to open a conversation on how to raise awareness about unconscious imaginaries in our research projects.

Biography: Nawelle Zaidi is a PhD student in Design at the Projekt Lab of the University of Nîmes, France and at the Robotics By Design Lab of Strate School of Design, France. Her research focuses on the design of social robots for older people and caregivers in medical nursing facilities. She is conducting a practice-based research in a company of geriatric institutions in France. She previously received a Master degree in generalist engineering (spe. images and signal processing) from Ecole Centrale Marseille in 2016 and a Master degree in Interaction Design from Strate School of Design in 2018, and worked for a couple of years as a UX Designer in the industry.

2022-6-23 15:00～16:30JST Hybrid (contact us to join in person)

Prof. D. Lestel (Ecole Normale Superieure, France)

Evolutionary Challenge of Animal Robots

Abstract: Robots and AI are not just machines that make it possible to do new things but ontological artifacts that profoundly change what it means to be alive. Robots and AI are part of a special category of non-biological living agents to which we can also attach other artifacts such as dolls, puppets or fetishes. Many robots look like animals but they are non-biological animal “transpecies” that do not belong to any species and that profoundly transform the ecology of life on Earth. This talk, accessible to non-philosophers, will discuss some of the problems posed by these disruptive machines that engage us in a major ecological revolution that has nothing to do with global warming.

Biography: Dominique Lestel teaches contemporary philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and is a tenured researcher of the Husserl Archives. He was a member of the French-Japanese Laboratory of Informatics at the University of Tokyo in 2013-2014, a Visiting Professor in the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering (in the GVLab) of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology with a JSPS Fellowship (2017-2018) and a Berggruen Fellow at the Center of Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2018-2019). His latest book, Machines Insurrectionnelles (Fayard, 2021) develops a post biological theory of living agents.

Dr. M. JANG (ETRI, Korea)

Introduction to Research Efforts on Robot AI for Elderly-Care

Abstract: In this talk, I introduce research efforts and results from our project at ETRI on developing robot AI technologies for elderly-care, especially focusing on: 1) domain-specific AI targetting domains of home environments and elderly people, and 2) robot intelligence for automated communicative gesture generation. I hope to share our vision for developing robots that really help people in the real-world.

Biography: Dr. Minsu JANG has been working at ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute) since 1999, and he received his PhD from KAIST in 2015. His research interest include social robots, human-robot interaction, robot SW integration, and artificial intelligence in general.

2021-12-9 17:00~17:30JST Online

Prof. L. Damiano (IULM University (Milan, Italy))

'Understanding by building'. Genealogy, epistemology and relevance of the synthetic approach to the modeling of life and cognition

Abstract: "Understanding by building" is the promise of the “synthetic method”, which supports the emerging sciences of the artificial in contributing to the scientific study of life and on cognition, lato sensu, based on the construction and the experimental exploration of “software”, “hardware” and “wetware” models of living and cognitive processes. This talk proposes a reconstruction of the genealogy and the epistemology of reference of the synthetic method with two main goals: defining the novelties that this methodological approach proposes with regard to the traditional way of 'doing science', and addressing the controversial issue of its relevance for the scientific understanding of natural living and cognitive phenomena.

Biography: Luisa Damiano (PhD) is Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the IULM University (Milan, Italy), and the coordinator of the Research Group on the Epistemology of the Sciences of the Artificial (RG-ESA). Her main research areas are: Epistemology of Complex Systems; Epistemology of the Cognitive Sciences; Epistemology of the Sciences of the Artificial. Since 2007, she has been working on these topics with scientific teams (Origins of Life Group, University of Rome Three, Rome, Italy, SynthCells EU Project; Adaptive Systems Research Group, Developmental Robotics Division, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom, Felix Growing EU Project and Aliz-é EU Project; Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, Empathy and Frontier Sciences JSPS Project and Artificial Empathy JSPS Project; currently: University of Salento, Lecce, Italy, and JAMSTEC, Yokosuka, Japan, SB-AI Project; Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan, Artificial Empathy Project). Among her publications there are many articles, the books Unità in dialogo (Bruno Mondadori, 2009) and Living with robots (with Paul Dumouchel, Harvard University Press, 2017, originally published in French by Seuil, 2016, in Korean by HEEDAM, 2019, and in Italian by Raffaello Cortina, 2019; currently in publication in Chinese by Peking University Press) and several co-edited journal special issues (e.g., Artificial Empathy, International Journal of Social Robotics, with Paul Dumouchel and Hagen Lehmann, 2014; What can Synthetic Biology offer to Artificial Intelligence (and vice versa), BioSystems, with Yutetsu Kuruma and Pasquale Stano, 2016; Synthetic Biology and Artificial Intelligence: Towards Cross-fertilization, Complex Systems, with Yutetsu Kuruma and Pasquale Stano, 2018).

鹿志村 洋次 (元富士ゼロックス研究技術開発本部インキュベーションセンター長, 現アマダAIイノベーション研究所　所長, 兼アマダ　DX戦略推進出本部長　執行役員)

日本のモノづくりの課題と事業機会

Abstract: 20世紀は半導体、自動車産業などを筆頭に日本は世界のモノづくりをリーディングしてきた。特にエレクトロニクス分野では『電子立国日本』と呼ばれ、世界の羨望を得ると共に、本経済成長を支え・成長を牽引してきた。しかし21世紀になり、IT/ICTが世界経済の牽引役になると日本産業の生産性は激落すると共に世界経済の日本企業は牽引役から後退した。 所謂GAFA+M/BATH+Kの台頭の時代が訪れた。しかし、IT/ICTの牽引力は、コロナパンデミック下では無力であり、マスク、ワクチン、医療機器などハードウエア製造などのローカルなモノづくりの脆弱性が露呈した。本講演ではこれらの背景を前提とし、日本のモノづくりの課題を明定すると共にDX化の正しい推進の在り方を提案する。更には東京農業工業大学様との協業が、アマダGの中・長期的な事業機会に貢献させるシナリオを共有する。

Biography: 1980-85年：大学・大学院　情報工学を専攻。 『打倒ムーアの法則＊』で、超電導トランジスタを研究。
1985-2004年：富士ゼロックス前半生（研究者） 密着型イメージセンサー、2次元イメージセンサーの研究開発 PARC駐在でフラットパネルディスプレイ、アナログニューラルネットワークの研究帰国後理研共同研究で人型情報処理（脳型Chip、顔認証、AI：プロアクティブ情報提示支援など）担当 2004-2018年:富士ゼロックス後半生（研究マネージメント） 研究推進部長：研究機能の再定義と変革を推進 顧客価値デザインセンター長：研究所の技術の事業化と研究部門におけるPoCを実践 インキュベーションセンター長/FXPAL 取締役/イノベーションオフィス＠シンガポール管掌：グローバルな研究事業開発推（UXデザイン、電子ペン、手書き文字認識、IoT・AI・ロボットなど）
2020.01-：アマダAIイノベーション研究所　所長を担当、AIを核に未来のモノ作りを訴求。
2021.10.01:アマダ DX戦略推進本部長　執行役員兼務。お客様とアマダGのDXを戦略的に推進するとともに新たな事業創出を担当。

Prof. Mohan ELARA (Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore)

The Rise of Self-reconfigurable Maintenance Robots

Abstract: : Self-reconfigurable robots are intelligent machines capable of autonomously changing their kinematic morphologies to overcome complexities in the traversing environment or task being handled. Their promise of a high degree of versatility, robustness, and modularity is set to open up a wide range of new applications for robots. However, developing these robots are highly challenging. While some progress has been achieved, there are still many open issues. In this talk, I will share our ongoing efforts at the Singapore University of Technology and Design towards the design, development and deployment of self-reconfigurable robots using a well-defined set of deployment use cases in the maintenance domain. I will also provide an insight into our concerted efforts being a catalyst to inspire an ecosystem of Singapore based robotic startups in non-conflicting and niche domains.

Biography: Dr. Mohan is currently an Assistant Professor with the Engineering Product Development Pillar at Singapore University of Technology and Design. He received his Ph.D. and M.Sc degrees from the Nanyang Technological University. His research interests are in robotics with an emphasis on self-reconfigurable platforms as well as research problems related to robot ergonomics and autonomous systems. He has published more than 150 papers in leading journals, books, and conferences. Dr. Mohan is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters and IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine. He is the recipient of the SG Mark Design, ASEE Best of Design in Engineering Award, Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Award and A’ Design award. He is the co-founder of Lionsbot and Oceania Robotics, robotics companies that develop a wide range of autonomous robots for specialized niche industries. He is also a visiting faculty member of the International Design Institute at Zhejiang University, China. Dr. Mohan has served in various positions of organizing and technical committees of several international competitions and conferences.

Dr. F. Ho (AIST, Japan)

Multi-Agent Path Finding for Real World Applications  

Abstract: In the near future, autonomous vehicles, such as drones and unmanned ground vehicles, are expected to be increasingly used for a variety of applications. Hence, there is a necessity for a real-world deployment of novel multi-agent systems. In this context, several challenges need to be addressed, whereby the main objectives are ensuring safety and providing efficiency. In particular, Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) has become an emerging field in the multi-agent systems and AI community, with the development of several approaches to address problems related to autonomous agents. However, several open issues and limitations remain to be addressed to effectively develop MAPF solutions for real world applications. In this talk, I will introduce the recent research performed on drones use cases in the context of Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM), challenges, results, and perspectives in the deployment of novel multi-agent systems.

Biography: Florence Ho obtained her master degree in Applied Mathematics & Computer Science from INP Toulouse, France in 2014 and a master degree in Operations Research from Pantheon Sorbonne University, France in 2015. She then received her PhD in Informatics from Sokendai, Japan in 2020. She is currently a researcher at NEC-AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technologies) in Japan. Her research interests include Optimization, Multi-Agent Systems, Autonomous vehicles, and Air Traffic Management.

Humans are able to perform a wide variety of complex actions manipulating a very large number of objects. We can make predictions on the outcome of our actions and on how to use different objects. Hence, we have excellent action&object understanding. Artificial agents, on the other hand, still miserably fail in this respect. It is particularly puzzling how inexperienced, young humans can acquire such knowledge; bootstrapped by exploration and extended by supervision. In this study we have, therefore, addressed the question how to structure the realm of actions and objects into dynamic representations, which allow for the learning of different action and object concepts. The central idea behind this is to adopt a grammatical view onto actions as well as objects and represent them using different syntactical elements. Performing a variety of manipulation actions on a table top (e.g. the actions of “making a breakfast”), we show that this will indeed lead to some kind of implicit (un-reflected) understanding of action and object concepts allowing an agent to generalize actions and redefine object-uses according to need.

Florentin Wörgötter studied biology and mathematics at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany. He received a Ph.D. degree, studying the visual cortex, from the University of Essen, Germany, in 1988. From 1988 to 1990, he did research in computational neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. He became a Researcher with the University of Bochum, Germany, in 1990, where he was investigating experimental and computational neuroscience of the visual system. From 2000 to 2005, he was a Professor for computational neuroscience with the Psychology Department, University of Stirling, U.K., where his interests strongly turned towards “Learning and Adaptive Artificial Systems” Since July 2005, he has been the Head of the Computational Neuroscience Department at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Inst. Physics 3, University of Göttingen, Germany. His current research interests include information processing in closed-loop perception–action systems (animals, robots), sensory processing (vision), motor control, and learning/plasticity, which are tested in different robotic implementations. This work has recently turned more and more towards issues of artificial cognition addressing problems of human action and object understanding and how to transfer this to machines.

多くのスポーツではスピードなどの記録を競う競技が多いが，その運動パターンは身体や相互作用する環境とののダイナミクスが強く拘束している．もちろん生理学的にも神経科学的にも運動自体は拘束されているが，運動パターン形成に関してはどうもヒトは効率の悪い運動をすることが苦手で，力学の支配からは逃げられないようである．この発表では，ハンマー投，ゴルフ，馬の歩容などの運動パターン形成の例を取り上げ，最後にサイバネティックトレーニングという考え方をご紹介する．

オプティトラック・ジャパン株式会社，主任研究員．NTTコミュニケーション科学基礎研究所，スポーツ脳科学プロジェクト，客員研究員．専門：スポーツバイオメカニクス，スポーツ工学．．北海道大学理学部地球物理学科卒．筑波大学大学院体育科学で博士（体育科学）取得．その後，理化学研究所バイオミメティックコントロール研究センター，Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciencesにてポスドク．国立スポーツ科学センター契約研究員，慶應義塾大学SFC特任准教授，九州先端科学技術研究所研究員などを経て2017年4月より現職．

Abstract: This talk presents the research activities of Strate Research the research and innovation department of Strate School of Design (France). We will focus on social robotics and more precisely we show how design changed the research process in a robotic consortium, Romeo project. Romeo is a humanoid robot that aims to be a companion for disable and older people in hospitals and nursing homes. From field explorations, designers imagine another robot solution, build prototypes and invent new ways to address users’ needs and expectations: intention scenarios. We present how these design interventions bring embodiment in early phases of SAR development, support the implementation of a comparative study on three robot representations, and open an in-situ discussion on human-robot interaction.

Biography: Ioana Ocnarescu (Ph.D. in Design Science) is a Design Researcher at Strate School of Design (Paris, France) in the Research and Innovation Department, where she coordinates Robotics by Design Lab. Her main research fields are: Social Robotics and SAR (Socially Assistive Robotics), Experience Design, Design Thinking and Design & Innovation. Her PhD entitled “Aesthetic Experience and Innovation Culture” shows how design creates an innovation culture but also memorable experiences for the researchers of a Research & Development Department (at Bell Labs France). At Strate she teaches two classes: Experience Design and Design & Robotics, master level. She is a design research leader in the Romeo2 project, where she manages the interconnections between medical team, users, designers and engineers.

She will be accompanied by Isabelle Cossin (Ph.D. in Art History on Animation Films) who is also a Researcher at Strate Research. She is also working on social robotics with a focus on robot mouvement and body representation.

Abstract: Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are systems that can translate the brain activity patterns of a user into messages or commands for an interactive application. Such brain activity is typically measured using Electroencephalography (EEG), before being processed and classified by the system. EEG-based BCIs have proven promising for a wide range of applications ranging from communication and control for motor impaired users, to gaming targeted at the general public, real-time mental state monitoring and stroke rehabilitation, to name a few. One of the objectives of team Potioc (https://team.inria.fr/potioc/) is to design reliable BCI technologies that can be used outside the lab for practical applications. To do so we work on EEG signal processing and classification, on BCI user training and on the exploration of various applications of BCI. In this talk I will notably present our work exploring BCIs applications that can potentially benefit everyone, notably in the areas of Neuroergonomics and Neuroeducation. Neuroergonomics consists in using brain signals to passively estimate some of the relevant user's mental states during human-computer interaction, in order to assess the ergonomic qualities of this interface. In particular, we showed that one can estimate mental workload during complex 3D manipulation and navigation tasks in order to assess or compare interaction techniques and devices. We have also been able to study stereoscopic displays by estimating visual comfort in EEG signals. Neuroeducation consists in using neurotechnologies and neuroscience knowledge in education. In this area we explored how BCIs can be used to teach people about EEG and the brain. To do so, we designed a number of devices based on augmented reality and/or tangible interfaces to enable novice users to visualize their own brain activity or mental states in real-time. I will conclude by discussing promising future areas of research in which BCIs can be used to adapt the content of teaching material to the learners' ongoing mental state.

Biography: Fabien Lotte holds a PhD in computer sciences from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) Rennes, France (2009). His PhD received both the PhD Thesis award from the French Association for Pattern Recognition, and the 2nd PhD Thesis award from the French Association for Information Sciences and Technologies. In 2009 and 2010, he was a research fellow at the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) in Singapore, working in the Brain-Computer Interface Laboratory. Since January 2011, he is a tenure Research Scientist at Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, France, in team Potioc (http://team.inria.fr/potioc/). His research interests include Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), human-computer interaction and brain signal processing. In 2016, he was the recipient of the prestigious ERC Starting Grant for his research on BCI. He is part of the editorial boards of the journals Brain-Computer Interfaces and Journal of Neural Engineering.

Abstract: Human motion measurement and analysis is a challenging problem, due to issues such as sensor and measurement system limitations, high dimensionality, and spatial and temporal variability. Accurate and timely motion measurement and analysis enables many applications, including imitation learning for robotics, new input and interaction mechanisms for interactive environments, and automated rehabilitation monitoring and assessment. In this talk we will describe recent work in the Adaptive Systems Laboratory at the University of Waterloo developing techniques for  automated human motion measurement and analysis. We will overview techniques for motion measurement, segmentation, individualized model learning and analysis, with a focus on applications in rehabilitation, motor symptoms diagnosis and sports training.

Biography: Dana KULIC (クリチ　ダナ) received the combined B. A. Sc. and M. Eng. degree in electro-mechanical engineering, and the Ph. D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of British Columbia, Canada, in 1998 and 2005, respectively. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Kulic worked with Dr. Elizabeth Croft as a Ph. D. student and a post-doctoral researcher at the CARIS Lab at the University of British Columbia, developing human-robot interaction strategies to quantify and maximize safety during the interaction. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Kuliｃ was a JSPS Post-doctoral Fellow and a Project Assistant Professor at the Nakamura-Yamane Laboratory at the University of Tokyo, Japan, working on algorithms for incremental learning of human motion patterns for humanoid robots. Dr. Kulic is currently an Associate Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her research interests include robot learning, humanoid robots, human-robot interaction and mechatronics.

Abstract: My main focus in this presentation will be conservation practices based on the existence of biodiversity repositories, which can take different and often coexistent forms : gene banks, seeds banked at low temperatures, cryoconserved tissue and gametes from endangered species, herbaria and arboreta. These efforts race to bank biodiversity in a warming, toxic, or dying world, so that endangered species migth be redeemed into a fantasised future of environmental remediation. I will explore both the troubled relationship to time, transmission and generativity this kind of banking project exemplifies, and how living repositories such as arboreta might point towards more dynamic and problematic human-nonhuman communities and entanglements in a world reworked by capitalist and colonialist powers and fluxes.

Biography: Anna-Katharina Laboissière has obtained her BA and MA in philosophy from the Ecole Normale Supérieure and Université Paris Ouest and is currently a PhD candidate at the philosophy department of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University in Perth. She has worked as an assistant curator at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris and is an International Collaborator of the Leading Graduate Program in Primatology and Wildlife Science at Kyoto University.

Abstract: Recently researchers in robotics and its related fields including Artificial Intelligence have revealed quite remarkable attainments: the news on robots who can imitate or preserve a particular Japanese traditional dance is such one. Given the reality of decreasing human bearers of dance tradition, robots are expected to play a carrier’ role for preserving and transmitting traditional dancing forms to the future human generations. From our average human eyes, robots may be able to be perceived to perform such dances, even to some artistically nuanced degree going beyond the level of some mechanical imitation, that is, to some good level of artistically appealing quality.　However, when it comes to the issue on ritualized battle and dance as opposed to real fighting with relevance to understanding and appreciating human dance, there would appear a great abyss between human dance and that of robot. How can researchers go beyond this abyss? I would like to take up a topic of “vogue dance” which was popularized and widespread by Lady Madonna (Louise Ciccone). This dance was originated by actual battles between Houses of drag queens in New York, and was transformed into ritualized battle dance with a keyword “shade.” By introducing anthropological discussion on fighting and its ritualization, rites of reconciliation, with reference to Gregory Bateson’s theory on meta-communication, I would like to develop my discussion on “Can Robots Perform/Play Vogue Dance?” If one robot happens to slip down when it unexpectedly steps onto a peeled banana skin on a floor, then another robot would be able to be made to make a smile at that slipping scene. And, is it possible for us to think that robots can acquire the meta-communicational abilities?

Biography: K. Miyasaka, is a Principal Researcher at Japan Educational Foundation and an Professor Emeritus, Keio University, & Research Associate at Global Center for Research on Logic and Sensibilities. He has been engaged in anthropological research on relational intersections of cultures in comparative perspective in several themes such as transcultural reformation of shaman and ethnic artists in globalizing processes [e.g. “Unusual Gestures in Japanese Folkloristic Ritual Trance and Performances.” In M.Rector, I Poggi, & M.Trigo Eds. Gestures Meaning and Use, 2003:293-300.], re-articulation of traditional healing systems, fundamental issues and future scope of visual anthropology [e.g. co-authored in Japanese, Eizo-Jinruigaku, 2014], impact of cultural psychiatry on anthropological reconsideration of culture theory, discourses on interculturalism & multicultural theatre, and anthropological perspective of advanced technology and ecology of information.

Abstract: To bring robotics out of the lab and into the real-world, they need to deal with an environment that is messy, complex and rapidly changing. While current robots still struggle greatly with energy-efficiency, versatility and robustness, animals are efficient, proficiently accomplish a variety of tasks in different environments and do all of this with grace. To achieve the same ability in robots, we need to stop thinking of this problem in the conventional manner: instead of building software and control on top of a given mechanical design, it is important to think of the tight coupling between behavior, mechanical design and controller design. I will talk about some past work which highlights the mechanical and controller design aspects in Cheetah-Cub-Tail, as well as intro- duce my current work looking at the coupling between morphology and learning controllers through reinforcement learning.

Biography: S. Heim completed his Bsc and Msc at ETH Zurich, starting in Mechanical Engineering and then specializing in Robotics, Systems and Control. During this time He spent a semester at TU Delft, and finished his master thesis at BioRob at EPFL working on how tails can be used in legged locomotion. Before joining the Dynamic Locomotion Group at Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, he spent a couple years in Prof. Ishiguro Lab at Tohoku University in Japan.

Abstract: Weird object that are not quite… real? objects? Objects that do not quite exists? In this presentation, I want to enquire into the nature of strange objects which exist on more than one world, or perhaps better, one plane of existence. Particularly clear examples of such objects are “items” which we find in video games. That is: swords, magic potions or clothing that can be gained or bought within the game and that enhance a character’s power or appearance. Interestingly, these also exists in the “real world”, where there is a market for such objects on which they can be bought or sold using normal currency, and where they sometimes constitute occasions of violence or theft. Items are only one example of a growing class of weird objects which simultaneously exists in both the “real” and the “virtual” worlds. I want to inquire into this hybrid mode of existence and what it tells us about what is real.

Biography: P. Dumouchel is Canadian, Professor of philosophy at the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He is co-author with Luisa Damiano of Vivre avec les robots essai sur l’empathie artificielle (Seuil, 2016), the English translation Living with Robots is coming out at Harvard University Press (Fall 2017) and is author or Emotions essai sur le corps et le social (Paris: Les Empêcheurs de Penser en rond, 1999) – He also co-edited Jean-Pierre Dupuy L’auto-organisation de la physique au politique (Paris: Seuil, 1983) With Reiko Gotoh he is co-editor of  Against Injustice The New Economics of Amartya Sen (Cambridge, 2009) and of Social Bonds as Freedom Revisiting the Dichotomy of the Universal and the Particular (Berghahn Books, 2015) – Together with L. Damiano and H. Lehmann they recently published “Artificial Empathy an Interdisciplinary  Investigation” in International Journal of Social Robotics, (2015) 7-1:3-5 and “Towards Human-Robots Affective  Co-evolution” in International Journal of Social Robotics (2015) 7-1:7-18; “Should Empathic Social Robots have Interiority?” in Social Robotics (S. Sam Ge, O. Khatib, J-J Cabibihan, R. Simmons & M-A. Williams, Eds), (Springer-Verlag: Berlin-Heidelberg, 2012), pp. 268-277; and with L. Damiano “Epigenetic embodiment” in (Cañamero L., Oudeyer P.-Y. & R. Balkenius eds,) Epigenetic Robotics, Lund University Cognitive Studies,(2009) 146: 41-48 and recently he published in French “La vie des robots et la nôtre” in Multitudes (2015) 58: 42-54.

Abstract: Unagi Travel is a travel agency for stuffed animals. Customers, the stuffed animals, come from all regions to Unagi Tavel's Tokyo office on a vacation. Travel photos and videos are shared live on Unagi Travel's Facebook/twitter for the owners to enjoy the travels together. Each customer has different reason for being on a travel. Many are repeating customers. Introducing its charms and the impacts that the stuffed animals bring to the humans.

Biography: S. Azuma received a BA from Sophia Univ., Japan and a MSc from Waseda Univ., Japan. She has pursued her career at Sanwa Bank (currently: The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ) and Deutsche Bank. In 2010, she launched Unagi Travel, a travel agency for stuffed animals. Starting in Tokyo, she expanded her business to other regions. She also collaborates with other businesses and local governments to offer a variety of tour services such as internships and sports activities. Her vision is to provide adventures to everyone around the globe; kids, students, moms, dads, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, physically-challenged, etc. and inspire them to trigger positive actions.

Abstract: Alongside the continued success and growth of industrial and service robotics, leisure and personal robotics (robot assistants, family robots) with social, cultural, and sometimes artistic dimensions are now undergoing increasingly intense development. Unlike the industrial and service approaches, this type of robotics does not necessarily have utilitarian aims. On the contrary, the more it targets the personal sphere or the world of culture and art, the more its aesthetic or emotional dimensions take precedence over functionality. How to focuse on the human-robot relationship at the level of aesthetic experience, based primarily on emotions and empathy ? Breaking with any figurative approach – be it anthropomorphic (and therefore humanoid), zoomorphic, or more broadly biomorphic –, how to use movement as our material, to establish a human-robot relationship – or, more broadly, a human-robotic object relationship – that is fundamentally emotional ? How can we attribute a personality to these objects if they do not possess any distinctive traits from the world of living beings ? To stimulate a “human-object” relationship based primarily on emotions and empathy rather than on utilitarian end, to qualify and enrich the sensitive human-robotic artifact relationship, it seems important and even necessary to allow art and robotics to discuss and work together.

Biography: Samuel Bianchini is an artist and associate professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs—Paris (EnsAD) / PSL Research University Paris. Supporting the principle of an “operational aesthetic,” he works on the relationship between the most forward-looking technological apparatus, new forms of aesthetic experiences, and sociopolitical organizations, often in collaboration with scientists and research laboratories. His works are regularly shown in Europe and across the world: Nuit Blanche Toronto 2016, Waterfall Gallery (New York), Medialab Prado (Madrid), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Art Basel…

This seminar is part of the Japanese council of IFToMM Robotics Seminars

Abstract: In late 1960, Joseph Weizenbaum authored a program called Eliza that simulated a therapist in carrying out a conversation with the user. The program did not understand anything, but relied on keyword matches, and a few simple heuristics to keep the flow of conversation. However, Weizenbaum was taken aback by the intensity of emotional attachment users felt towards this program, prompting him to highlight this negative aspect of technology in his thought provoking book "Computer Power and Human Reason". In recent years, however, there has been a revival of Eliza-like systems and interfaces in cognitive robotics. We will look at some such systems and argue that they often have a positive and therapeutic effect on the user, and that in some situations at least this kind of robot-human interaction transcends human-human interaction.

Biography: Bipin Indurkhya is a professor of Cognitive Science at the Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland. His main research interests are social robotics, usability engineering, affective computing and creativity. He received his Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from the Philips International Institute, Eindhoven (The Netherlands) in 1981, and PhD in Computer Science from University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1985. He has taught at various universities in the US, Japan, India, Germany and Poland; and has led national and international research projects with collaborations from companies like Xerox and Samsung.

Abstract: Human robot interaction (HRI) is not only confined to particular applications for entertainment. In fact, in any situation in which the robot works in contact with humans, interaction and mutual understanding play a crucial role. Therefore we argue that the robot must be capable of learning how to interact with humans in a natural way, to be able to understand humans’ emotional state, as well as basic non-verbal communication signals. This, for example, will allow naïve users to interact with the robot immediately, under any circumstances, without extensive training. But, especially, this will give the robot the means to calibrate its response while interacting with humans during a specific task. HRI challenges can thus be seen as a combination of active perception and dynamic cognitive processing. How can we solve the challenges that this field presents?

Biography: Dr. Cosentino is a hands-on engineer and enthusiastic academic researcher. She started working as a freelance collaborator in an Electronics company during high-school, until earning her M.Sc. in Electronic engineering. Straight after her graduation she moved to Japan for a prestigious 1-year industrial internship program, which was extended to a full employee contract by the company for another 2 years. After 3 years in Japan, working for challenging projects in Electronics R&D, she decided it was time to change, applied and was selected for a scholarship program, and enrolled in a Ph.D. course in Waseda University. During her studies she collaborated with several other researchers across the globe, spending months in leading universities in U.S. and Europe. Her main interests are human physiology, human sensing, human communication, affective computing and human-machine interaction. She has hands-on experience in electronic design and assembly, and a wide researching experience in developing sensor systems for applications mostly related to human sensing, and human-robot interaction, authoring several publications on her specific work.