6452 UK, Call for Participation, CompanionAble Consortium, AAL Companion Robotics Institute Workshop Series, 5th Workshop, Brussels Novotel, 8th March 2011

Call for Participation

CompanionAble Consortium, AAL Companion Robotics Institute Workshop Series

5^th Workshop, Brussels Novotel, 8^th March 2011

AAL User-Centred Companion Robotics Experimentoria,

Supporting Socio-ethically Intelligent Assistive Technologies Adoption

 

 

Background & Motivation

 

The theme of Companion Robotics Research was first proposed as a dedicated large scale Collaborative RTDI Programme by the CompanionAble Consortium, led by  Prof. Atta Badii, University of Reading, UK; in May 2007 and subsequent to the approval of the project as an Integrated Programme under the auspices of the EC ICT-FP7 eInclusion Directorate,  the CompanionAble Consortium (www.companionable.net) organised the first international workshop on the Companion Robotics theme in November 2008 at the ICT 2008 in Lyon which attracted a large number of participants. This was followed by the 2^nd, 3rd and 4^th such workshop respectively in Bilbao, December 2008, in Salzburg at the AmI November 2009 and in Brussels 30^thSeptember.  In April 2010 the CompanionAble Consortium formally established the CompanionAble Robotics Institute (CRI) as a foundation organisation dedicated to the dissemination and exploitation of Companion Robotics as complementary to home and appliance augmentation or as all-in plug-and-perform assistive technology for any legacy or smart home deployment.

 

Through its dissemination programme, CRI continues its focus on research challenges relating to the graceful adoption, integration and adaptation of Companion Robots as socially-aware assistive devices at home, or at work for enhanced life/work-style support, comfort and societal benefits.

 

For this 5^th Workshop the CRI Workshops Committee wishes to keep its focus firmly on the synergy of the following important themes;  the confluence of which will significantly influence the mainstreaming of the Companion/Social Robotics of the future as realistic options off-the-shelf and an important part of the AAL Solutions Spectrum

 

• Socio-ethically intelligent deployment of Companion/Social Robotics

 

• AAL Ecosystem Stakeholder Requirements generalisation ontology framework

 

• Human-Robot Interaction: comprising a range of issues: e.g. direct voice-commanded control, real-time remote control, personal-space-preservation and contextualised dialogue management

 

• Companion/Social  Robots as emotion/activity literate monitors and context-sensitive respondents

 

• Human -Robot and Robot-Robot Teams cooperativity and training autonomy support

 

• Companion Robot secure semantic Interoperability with the Future Internet and the AAL  Platform

 

• The Thriving AAL Ecosystem: Matchmaking of Assistive Devices to Well-Being Needs: Achieving the triple dynamic equilibrium point of optimally matched spectra:  i) the AAL users’ Needs Spectrum, ii) the ALL Solutions Shelf, and,iii) Affordability Engineered Sustainable AAL business models

 

• Companion Robotics as Socialisation & Assistance Gateways mediating access to richer social interaction; positive psychology and fun socio-cognitive stimulation

 

• Evaluation and Certification Practice Models for efficient usability evaluation and safety-assurance of personalised ICT-enabled support for AAL user’s priority needs

 

• Future Internet of People, Robots Things and Services Sociality

 

• Dynamic Usability Relationship Based evaluation of Assistive Technologies

 

Participation Process and Timeline

 

Participation in the CRI Workshop Series is open and free to all members of the stakeholder community. Those wishing to contribute to the workshop as either members of the audience, presenters, discussants or exhibitors can contact the Workshop Programme Chairs as listed below to indicate their intention to participate and/or send a position paper including an outline of the issues that they wish to discuss and clarify whether they intend to make a presentation, lead a break-out group or act as a Panellist, Discussant or exhibitor of a prototype.  Contributors are invited to submit their short (4 pages) or long papers (8 Pages) in LNCS format and addressing any of the above areas or their own research topic within the overall thematic framework of Companion Robotics Design and Integration research challenges.

 

Important Dates:

 

• 21st February2011: Deadline for submission of papers by email to d.thiemert@rdg.ac.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• 26^th February2011: Deadline for notification of accepted papers
• 5^th March 2011: Deadline for Final Camera-Ready Submission

Accepted papers will be encouraged to be developed for publication in a forthcoming book: Companion Robots Integration, Socialisation & Diffusion: Architectural & Socio-Technical Challenges, Editors: Atta Badii, Horst Michael Gross, Gerard Chollet,  Jerome Boudy, Daniel Thiemert

 

Workshop Programme Chair: Professor Atta Badii, Coordinator CompanionAble Project    

Workshop Programme Co-Chairs: Professor Horst Michael Gross, Professor Gerard Chollet, Professor Jerome Boudy and Daniel Thiemert

 

Professor Atta Badii

(Secure Pervasive Technologies)

Intelligent Media Systems  Services Research Laboratory

School of Systems Engineering

University of Reading

Whiteknights

RG6 6AY, UK

Phone:          00 44 118 378 7842

Fax:              00 44 118 975 1994

http://www.imss.reading.ac.uk