Colloquium of Prof. M Jenkin about Social Robotics

Abstract: The need for social robot systems has become even more acute as a result of the ongoing pandemic. Labourshortages in the services sector and public health concerns around infection transmission combine to favour thedeployment of autonomous systems in a number of traditional roles including server robots in restaurants, companion robots in long-term care homes and security robots in public spaces, to identify but a few examples. To be successful, social robots must communicate with a wide range of individuals under a wide range of differentscenarios. To be successful, social robots must communicate with a wide range of individuals under a wide range of differentscenarios. How do people expect to interact with an autonomous robot? Are they looking for a robot that emulates a specific gender or do we prefer androgenous non-anthropomorphic devices?  Beyond this, how should robots interact with implicit communication hints provided through sentiment cues embedded in language in spoken communication? Understanding and reacting to the sentiment being expressed by an individual is key in human-human interaction.  This talk presents results in the development of sentiment analysis and display technologies as part of the development of a sentiment-informed social robot named Sentrybot, an autonomous robot intended for deployment in the security domain. These technical achievements will be presented alongside user studies that have identified human preferences in terms of the nature of robots engaged in social interactions.