2023, Schmiedel, Theresa, Zhong, Jia, Eyssel, Friederike

Even though a broad range of social robots are currently available on the market, social robots are not yet an integral part of companies, healthcare providers, or public institutions. This might be due to the fact that the prevalent developer perspective immanently focuses on technological advancements, whereas a human-centered view remains underrepresented. In this paper, we argue that a human-centered perspective which integrates values and beliefs of relevant technology stakeholders needs to complement existing approaches to social robot design. Therefore, we propose to apply value sensitive design (VSD) to improve the process of social robot development and design. Even though VSD has become popular in recent years and it represents an established approach to foster innovative technologies, it has not yet been widely applied in the context of social robotics. Concretely, in this paper we will outline the added value of using VSD for social robots and we will explain how to utilize this methodology to enrich research and practice in social robotics.

2018, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf, Hanne, Thomas

This paper investigates the functionality and quality of the implementation of a search and target surrounding swarm robotic algorithm using physical swarm robots named Kilobots. The implementation was developed and tested in the simulator V-REP, then transferred onto the actually running Kilobots: Ten Kilobots were used for the experiment, where one Kilobot acts as the target and nine Kilobots act as the searchers. The algorithm allows the searchers to swarm out to find the target while avoiding collisions with other searchers, to orbit around other searchers, which are closer to the target, and finally to surround the target once it is found. The results of the implementation using the physical Kilobots are compared with the results of two adjusted computer simulations. Differences between the simulations and the real robot implementation are investigated: Discrepancies regarding the locomotion and the communication capabilities are identified and discussed.

2016, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Zhong, Jia

Die Autohersteller befinden sich in einer heissen Transformationsphase. Die Autos werden zunehmend intelligenter. Gleichzeitig eröffnen neue digitale Technologien unzählige Möglichkeiten für neue Geschäftsmodelle rund ums Auto. Fünf Experten aus der Automobilindustrie, der Forschung und dem Technologiesektor haben uns Einblicke in die Zukunft gewährt.