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All Outputs (32)

Achieving goals using reward shaping and curriculum learning (2023)
Presentation / Conference
Studley, M., hansen, M., anca, M., thomas, J., & pedamonti, D. (2023, November). Achieving goals using reward shaping and curriculum learning. Paper presented at Future Technologies Conference, San Francisco

Real-time control for robotics is a popular research area in the reinforcement learning community. Through the use of techniques such as reward shaping, researchers have managed to train online agents across a multitude of domains. Despite these adva... Read More about Achieving goals using reward shaping and curriculum learning.

Roots and models (2023)
Journal Article
Studley, M., & deLahunta, S. (2023). Roots and models. AI and Society, 38, 1977–1979. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01701-5

One of us comes from dance, the other from robotics, and you would be forgiven for thinking immediately about the YouTube films created by Boston Dynamics. But what connects us is our concern that human-ness is losing ground to machine-ness. To partl... Read More about Roots and models.

European robotics league: Benchmarking through smart city robot competitions (2023)
Book Chapter
Studley, M., Carter, S., Perez-Grau, F. J., Viguria, A., Ferri, G., Ferreira, F., …Iocchi, L. (in press). European robotics league: Benchmarking through smart city robot competitions. In D. R. Vinjamuri (Ed.), Human-Robot Interaction - Perspectives and Applications. InTech. https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108583

The SciRoc project, started in 2018, is an EU-H2020 funded project supporting the European Robotics League (ERL) and builds on the success of the EU-FP7/H2020 projects RoCKIn, euRathlon, EuRoC and ROCKEU2. The ERL is a framework for robot competition... Read More about European robotics league: Benchmarking through smart city robot competitions.

Saltwater-responsive bubble artificial muscles using superabsorbent polymers (2022)
Journal Article
Gosden, D., Diteesawat, R. S., Studley, M., & Rossiter, J. (2022). Saltwater-responsive bubble artificial muscles using superabsorbent polymers. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 9, 960372. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2022.960372

Robots operating in changing underwater environments may be required to adapt to these varying conditions. In tidal estuaries, for example, where the degree of salinity cycles in step with the level of the water, a robot may need to adapt its behavio... Read More about Saltwater-responsive bubble artificial muscles using superabsorbent polymers.

Benchmarking robots in smart cities (2022)
Journal Article
Studley, M., Presutti, V., Nardi, D., & Carter, S. (2022). Benchmarking robots in smart cities. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 28(3), 20-25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3522686

In order for robots to become integrated into society, we need to be able to prove that robots do their jobs reliably. Robot benchmarking competitions in smart cities offer a glimpse into our future.

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.

Technology and risk considerations in shaping future drone legislation (2021)
Journal Article
Wright, S., & Studley, M. (2021). Technology and risk considerations in shaping future drone legislation. International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 21(2), 128-139. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTPM.2021.116513

The global aviation industry has decades-old and highly successful legislation enforcing safety in conventional manned aerospace. This framework has been evolved gradually around a set of mature technologies with particular goals and implementations,... Read More about Technology and risk considerations in shaping future drone legislation.

Onshoring through automation; Perpetuating inequality? (2021)
Journal Article
Studley, M. (2021). Onshoring through automation; Perpetuating inequality?. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 8, Article 634297. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2021.634297

Many analyses of the ethical, legal and societal impacts of robotics are focussed on Europe and the United States. In this article I discuss the impacts of robotics on developing nations in a connected world, and make the case that international equi... Read More about Onshoring through automation; Perpetuating inequality?.

Pulsed thermography digital motion stabilization for the unmanned vehicle inspection of solar farms and GFRP wind blades through UAVs and UGVs (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Urtasun, B., López De Uralde, P., Velar, K., Gorostegui, E., Neelov, J., Wright, S., …Basiri, M. (2021). Pulsed thermography digital motion stabilization for the unmanned vehicle inspection of solar farms and GFRP wind blades through UAVs and UGVs. In J. N. Zalameda, & A. Mendioroz (Eds.), . https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2585902

The quality control of structures and fuselages in both the wind-turbine and solar sectors is a fundamental part that allows a lifetime assessment of their elements, from its initial assembly to the recurring inspection cycles. Automating the active... Read More about Pulsed thermography digital motion stabilization for the unmanned vehicle inspection of solar farms and GFRP wind blades through UAVs and UGVs.

Twin delayed hierarchical actor-critic (2021)
Conference Proceeding
Anca, M., & Studley, M. (2021). Twin delayed hierarchical actor-critic. In 2021 7th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (ICARA) (221-225). https://doi.org/10.1109/icara51699.2021.9376459

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) addresses the common problem in sparse rewards environments of having to manually craft a reward function. We present a modified version of the Hierarchical Actor-Critic (HAC) architecture called Twin Delayed... Read More about Twin delayed hierarchical actor-critic.

ShearTouch - Towards a wearable tactile feedback device to provide continuous shear force sensation in real time (2020)
Conference Proceeding
Wells, O., Pipe, T., Dogramadzi, S., & Studley, M. (2020). ShearTouch - Towards a wearable tactile feedback device to provide continuous shear force sensation in real time. In Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (287-298). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63486-5_30

Force feedback in current teleoperation systems typically only provides haptic/kinaesthetic feedback to operators in the form of normal forces. However, it is proposed in this paper that the introduction of shear (or lateral) force feedback to operat... Read More about ShearTouch - Towards a wearable tactile feedback device to provide continuous shear force sensation in real time.

Robots in Smart Cities (2020)
Book Chapter
Studley, M. E., & Little, H. (2021). Robots in Smart Cities. In How Smart is Your City? (75-88). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56926-6_7

Robots and Smart Cities seem like natural partners. They both gather data and process it, and could provide added value to each other in a variety of ways. In this chapter, we briefly explore some potential use cases featuring the smart city as an in... Read More about Robots in Smart Cities.

Usability study of a robot companion for monitoring industrial processes (2020)
Conference Proceeding
Sita, E., Thomessen, T., Pipe, A. G., Studley, M., & Dailami, F. (2020). Usability study of a robot companion for monitoring industrial processes. In 2020 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems (ACIRS) (37-42). https://doi.org/10.1109/acirs49895.2020.9162607

In this paper we present the findings of a usability study for a monitoring robotic unit tele-operated via a virtual fixtures (VF) based control framework. The study aims at investigating the impact of VF on the robot navigation as well as the impact... Read More about Usability study of a robot companion for monitoring industrial processes.

The impact of affective verbal expressions in social robots (2020)
Conference Proceeding
van Maris, A., Sutherland, A., Mazel, A., Dogramadzi, S., Zook, N., Studley, M., …Caleb-Solly, P. (2020). The impact of affective verbal expressions in social robots. . https://doi.org/10.1145/3371382.3378358

This research investigates whether there is an ethical concern in robots misrepresenting their internal state through speech. Participants were asked to discuss their food preferences with a robot, where the robot would either respond through facts o... Read More about The impact of affective verbal expressions in social robots.

Speech related accessibility issues in social robots (2020)
Conference Proceeding
van Maris, A., Dogramadzi, S., Zook, N., Studley, M., Winfield, A., & Caleb-Solly, P. (2020). Speech related accessibility issues in social robots. In HRI '20: ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (505-507). https://doi.org/10.1145/3371382.3378379

This work describes an incidental finding from a longitudinal Human-Robot Interaction study that was investigating whether a robot showing emotions during interactions with older adults was perceived differently than to a robot that did not display e... Read More about Speech related accessibility issues in social robots.

Designing ethical social robots - A longitudinal field study with older adults (2020)
Journal Article
van Maris, A., Zook, N., Caleb-Solly, P., Studley, M., Winfield, A., & Dogramadzi, S. (2020). Designing ethical social robots - A longitudinal field study with older adults. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 7(1), https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2020.00001

Emotional deception and emotional attachment are regarded as ethical concerns in human robot interaction. Considering these concerns is essential, particularly as little is known about longitudinal effects of interactions with social robots. We ran a... Read More about Designing ethical social robots - A longitudinal field study with older adults.

Onboard Evolution of Understandable Swarm Behaviors (2019)
Journal Article
Jones, S., Winfield, A. F., Hauert, S., & Studley, M. (2019). Onboard Evolution of Understandable Swarm Behaviors. Advanced Science, 1(6), Article 1900031. https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.201900031

Designing the individual robot rules that give rise to desired emergent swarm behaviors is difficult. The common method of running evolutionary algorithms off‐line to automatically discover controllers in simulation suffers from two disadvantages: th... Read More about Onboard Evolution of Understandable Swarm Behaviors.

The need for ethical principles and guidelines in social robots (2019)
Conference Proceeding
Van Maris, A., Zook, N., Studley, M., & Dogramadzi, S. (2019). The need for ethical principles and guidelines in social robots. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Robot Ethics and Standards. https://doi.org/10.13180/icres.2019.29-30.07.006

This paper stresses the importance of establishing ethical principles regarding possible (psychological) effects of interactions with (social) robots. It highlights existing principles and standards regarding artificial intelligence systems and robot... Read More about The need for ethical principles and guidelines in social robots.