All Outputs (114)

Variable autonomy through responsible robotics: Design guidelines and research agenda (2024)
Journal Article
Reinmund, T., Salvini, P., Kunze, L., Jirotka, M., & Winfield, A. F. (2024). Variable autonomy through responsible robotics: Design guidelines and research agenda. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, 13(1), 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3636432

Physically embodied artificial agents, or robots, are being incorporated into various practical and social contexts, from self-driving cars for personal transportation to assistive robotics in social care. To enable these systems to better perform un... Read More about Variable autonomy through responsible robotics: Design guidelines and research agenda.

Introducing the concept of repurposing robots; to increase their useful life, reduce waste, and improve sustainability in the robotics industry (2023)
Conference Proceeding
Mcgloin, H., Studley, M., Mawle, R., & Winfield, A. (2023). Introducing the concept of repurposing robots; to increase their useful life, reduce waste, and improve sustainability in the robotics industry. In R. W. de Bruin, M. O. Tokhi, L. Belder, M. I. A. Ferreira, N. S. Govindarajulu, & M. F. Silva (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.13180/icres.2023.17-18.07.007

Based on current definitions of electronic waste, the robotics industry faces a future where products created for both business and consumer markets could be required to meet regulations to manage the control of electronic products at the end of thei... Read More about Introducing the concept of repurposing robots; to increase their useful life, reduce waste, and improve sustainability in the robotics industry.

Evaluation of frameworks that combine evolution and learning to design robots in complex morphological spaces (2023)
Journal Article
Li, W., Buchanan, E., Goff, L. K. L., Hart, E., Hale, M. F., Wei, B., …Tyrrell, A. M. (in press). Evaluation of frameworks that combine evolution and learning to design robots in complex morphological spaces. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, https://doi.org/10.1109/tevc.2023.3316363

Jointly optimising both the body and brain of a robot is known to be a challenging task, especially when attempting to evolve designs in simulation that will subsequently be built in the real world. To address this, it is increasingly common to combi... Read More about Evaluation of frameworks that combine evolution and learning to design robots in complex morphological spaces.

Practical hardware for evolvable robots (2023)
Journal Article
Angus, M., Buchanan, E., Le Goff, L. K., Hart, E., Eiben, A. E., De Carlo, M., …Tyrrell, A. M. (2023). Practical hardware for evolvable robots. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 10, Article 1206055. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1206055

The evolutionary robotics field offers the possibility of autonomously generating robots that are adapted to desired tasks by iteratively optimising across successive generations of robots with varying configurations until a high-performing candidate... Read More about Practical hardware for evolvable robots.

Ethical assessment of a hospital disinfection robot (2023)
Journal Article
McGinn, C., Scott, R., Donnelly, N., Cullinan, M. F., Winfield, A., & Treusch, P. (2023). Ethical assessment of a hospital disinfection robot. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 12008-12014. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160903

Robots have the potential to deliver very positive impacts for society, however, it's critical that in preparing for real-world deployments, we recognize and take steps to mitigate against the potential harms, both direct and indirect, that they may... Read More about Ethical assessment of a hospital disinfection robot.

Ethical risk assessment for social robots: Case studies in smart robot toys (2022)
Book Chapter
Winfield, A. F. T., van Maris, A., Winkle, K., Jirotka, M., Salvini, P., Webb, H., …Theofanopoulou, N. (2022). Ethical risk assessment for social robots: Case studies in smart robot toys. In M. Isabel, A. Ferreira, & M. Osman Tokhi (Eds.), Towards Trustworthy Artificial Intelligent Systems (61-76). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09823-9_4

Risk Assessment is a well known and powerful method for discovering and mitigating risks, and hence improving safety. Ethical Risk Assessment uses the same approach, but extends the scope of risk to cover ethical risks in addition to safety risks. In... Read More about Ethical risk assessment for social robots: Case studies in smart robot toys.

IEEE Standard for Transparency of Autonomous Systems (2022)
Other
Winfield, A., Watson, E., Egawa, T., Barwell, E., Barclay, I., Booth, S., …Wortham, R. H. (2022). IEEE Standard for Transparency of Autonomous Systems. New York

Measurable, testable levels of transparency, so that autonomous systems can be objectively assessed, and levels of compliance determined, are described in this standard.

Morpho-evolution with learning using a controller archive as an inheritance mechanism (2022)
Journal Article
Le Goff, L. K., Buchanan, E., Hart, E., Eiben, A. E., Li, W., De Carlo, M., …Tyrrell, A. M. (2023). Morpho-evolution with learning using a controller archive as an inheritance mechanism. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, 15(2), 507 - 517. https://doi.org/10.1109/tcds.2022.3148543

Most work in evolutionary robotics centres on evolving a controller for a fixed body-plan. However, previous studies suggest that simultaneously evolving both controller and body-plan could open up many interesting possibilities. However, the joint o... Read More about Morpho-evolution with learning using a controller archive as an inheritance mechanism.

Experiments in artificial culture: from noisy imitation to storytelling robots (2021)
Journal Article
Winfield, A. F. T., & Blackmore, S. (2021). Experiments in artificial culture: from noisy imitation to storytelling robots. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences, 377, Article 20200323. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020-0323

This paper presents a series of experiments in collective social robotics, spanning more than 10 years, with the long-term aim of building embodied models of (aspects) of cultural evolution. Initial experiments demonstrated the emergence of behaviour... Read More about Experiments in artificial culture: from noisy imitation to storytelling robots.

A new perspective on robot ethics through investigating human–robot interactions with older adults (2021)
Journal Article
van Maris, A., Zook, N., Dogramadzi, S., Studley, M., Winfield, A., & Caleb-Solly, P. (2021). A new perspective on robot ethics through investigating human–robot interactions with older adults. Applied Sciences, 11(21), Article 10136. https://doi.org/10.3390/app112110136

This work explored the use of human–robot interaction research to investigate robot ethics. A longitudinal human–robot interaction study was conducted with self-reported healthy older adults to determine whether expression of artificial emotions by a... Read More about A new perspective on robot ethics through investigating human–robot interactions with older adults.

Robot narratives (2021)
Book Chapter
Orell, M. S., Bown, J., Stepney, S., Walsh, R., & Winfield, A. F. T. (2021). Robot narratives. In A. Adamatzky (Ed.), Handbook of Unconventional Computing Volume 1: Theory (221-246). World Scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811235726_0006

There is evidence that humans understand how the world goes through narrative. We discuss what it might mean for embodied robots to understand the world, and communicate that understanding, in a similar manner. We suggest an architecture for adding n... Read More about Robot narratives.

IEEE P7001: A proposed standard on transparency (2021)
Journal Article
Winfield, A. F. T., Booth, S., Dennis, L. A., Egawa, T., Hastie, H., Jacobs, N., …Watson, E. (2021). IEEE P7001: A proposed standard on transparency. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8, Article 665729. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.665729

This paper describes IEEE P7001, a new draft standard on transparency of autonomous systems. In the paper, we outline the development and structure of the draft standard. We present the rationale for transparency as a measurable, testable property. W... Read More about IEEE P7001: A proposed standard on transparency.

Governing AI safety through independent audits (2021)
Journal Article
Falco, G., Shneiderman, B., Badger, J., Carrier, R., Dahbura, A., Danks, D., …Yeong, Z. K. (2021). Governing AI safety through independent audits. Nature Machine Intelligence, 3(7), 566-571. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00370-7

Highly automated systems are becoming omnipresent. They range in function from self-driving vehicles to advanced medical diagnostics and afford many benefits. However, there are assurance challenges that have become increasingly visible in high-profi... Read More about Governing AI safety through independent audits.

Role-play as responsible robotics: The virtual witness testimony role-play interview for investigating hazardous human-robot interactions (2021)
Journal Article
Webb, H., Dumitru, M., van Maris, A., Winkle, K., Jirotka, M., & Winfield, A. (2021). Role-play as responsible robotics: The virtual witness testimony role-play interview for investigating hazardous human-robot interactions. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8, Article 644336. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.644336

The development of responsible robotics requires paying attention to responsibility within the research process in addition to responsibility as the outcome of research. This paper describes the preparation and application of a novel method to explor... Read More about Role-play as responsible robotics: The virtual witness testimony role-play interview for investigating hazardous human-robot interactions.

Negative updating applied to the best-of-n problem with noisy qualities (2021)
Journal Article
Lee, C., Lawry, J., & Winfield, A. F. (2021). Negative updating applied to the best-of-n problem with noisy qualities. Swarm Intelligence, 15, 111-143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11721-021-00188-4

The ability to perform well in the presence of noise is an important consideration when evaluating the effectiveness of a collective decision-making framework. Any system deployed for real-world applications will have to perform well in complex and u... Read More about Negative updating applied to the best-of-n problem with noisy qualities.

Robot accident investigation: A case study in responsible robotics (2020)
Book Chapter
Winfield, A. F. T., Winkle, K., Webb, H., Lyngs, U., Jirotka, M., & Macrae, C. (2021). Robot accident investigation: A case study in responsible robotics. In A. Cavalcanti, B. Dongol, R. Hierons, J. Timmis, & J. Woodcock (Eds.), Software Engineering for Robotics (165-187). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66494-7_6

Robot accidents are inevitable. Although rare, they have been happening since assembly line robots were first introduced in the 1960s. But a new generation of social robots is now becoming commonplace. Equipped with sophisticated embedded artificial... Read More about Robot accident investigation: A case study in responsible robotics.

Towards autonomous robot evolution (2020)
Book Chapter
Eiben, A. E., Hart, E., Timmis, J., Tyrrell, A. M., & Winfield, A. F. (2021). Towards autonomous robot evolution. In A. Cavalcanti, B. Dongol, R. Hierons, J. Timmis, & J. Woodcock (Eds.), Software Engineering for Robotics (29-51). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66494-7_2

We outline a perspective on the future of evolutionary robotics and discuss a long-term vision regarding robots that evolve in the real world. We argue that such systems offer significant potential for advancing both science and engineering. For scie... Read More about Towards autonomous robot evolution.

Bootstrapping artificial evolution to design robots for autonomous fabrication (2020)
Journal Article
Buchanan, E., Le Goff, L. K., Li, W., Hart, E., Eiben, A. E., De Carlo, M., …Tyrrell, A. M. (2020). Bootstrapping artificial evolution to design robots for autonomous fabrication. Robotics, 9(4), Article 106. https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics9040106

A long-term vision of evolutionary robotics is a technology enabling the evolution of entire autonomous robotic ecosystems that live and work for long periods in challenging and dynamic environments without the need for direct human oversight. Evolut... Read More about Bootstrapping artificial evolution to design robots for autonomous fabrication.

Evolution of diverse, manufacturable robot body plans (2020)
Conference Proceeding
Buchanan, E., Goff, L. K. L., Hart, E., Eiben, A. E., Carlo, M. D., Li, W., …Tyrrell, A. M. (2020). Evolution of diverse, manufacturable robot body plans. In 2020 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI) (2132-2139). https://doi.org/10.1109/ssci47803.2020.9308434

Advances in rapid prototyping have opened up new avenues of research within Evolutionary Robotics in which not only controllers but also the body plans (morphologies) of robots can evolve in real-time and real-space. However, this also introduces new... Read More about Evolution of diverse, manufacturable robot body plans.

Hardware design for autonomous robot evolution (2020)
Conference Proceeding
Hale, M. F., Angus, M., Buchanan, E., Li, W., Woolley, R., Goff, L. K. L., …Tyrrell, A. M. (2020). Hardware design for autonomous robot evolution. In 2020 IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI) (2140-2147). https://doi.org/10.1109/ssci47803.2020.9308204

The long term goal of the Autonomous Robot Evolution (ARE) project is to create populations of physical robots, in which both the controllers and body plans are evolved. The transition of evolutionary designs from purely simulation environments into... Read More about Hardware design for autonomous robot evolution.