Recently, the development and deployment of social robots to support children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC) has attracted the attention of researchers in different fields. The main aim of this multidisciplinary research field is to teach and improve the social skills and capabilities of the children through interacting and playing with robots however, due to the spontaneous nature of ch...

In contrast to human soccer players, autonomous robot soccer players often move according to a limited set of predefined behavioural rules. This knowledge can be used advantageously: If the opponent’s behavioural rules are learned, it will be possible to detect these during a match and react accordingly. A method for autonomous activity mining in videos, called Probabilistic Latent Sequential M...

In this paper, we make two contributions. First, we present a new domain, called Segway Soccer, for investigating the coordination of dynamically formed, mixed human-robot teams within the realm of a team task that requires real-time decision making and response. Segway Soccer is a game of soccer between two teams consisting of Segway riding humans and Segway RMP-based robots. We believe Segway...

For state estimation in robotics applications, especially for robot self-localization, the Monte-Carlo approach has been a popular choice in recent years. Since the original proposal of the approach, several modifications and improvements, e.g., for more intelligent resampling or for efficiently coping with the kidnapped robot problem, have been proposed. Nevertheless, the currently used approa...

In several realistic domains an agent’s behavior is composed of multiple interdependent skills. For example, consider a humanoid robot that must play soccer, as is the focus of this paper. In order to succeed, it is clear that the robot needs to walk quickly, turn sharply, and kick the ball far. However, these individual skills are ineffective if the robot falls down when switching from walking...

The RoboCup is an initiative to promote the development of robotics in a social relevant way. The competition consists of several leagues and it would be beneficial if developments in one league could be reused in other leagues. This paper describes the development of a simulation model for a humanoid robot inside USARSim, which could be the basis of synergy between the Rescue Simulation, Socce...

Controlling a biped robot with a high degree of freedom to achieve stable and straight movement patterns is a complex problem. With growing computational power of computer hardware, high resolution real time simulation of such robot models has become more and more applicable. This paper presents a novel approach to generate bipedal gait for humanoid locomotion. This approach is based on modifie...

‘Sticky Hands’ is an exercise for two participants requiring them to maintain a gentle hand to hand contact. The intention is to explore graceful and relaxed motion together, develop physical sensitivity and responsiveness, and interact at a comfortably intimate level for physical relaxation and spiritual development. We present a system allowing a person to perform this novel interaction with ...