Autonomous Social Robots in the Real World: Current Challenges and Future Directions

As social robots move out of controlled laboratory environments to be deployed in the real world, a long-standing barrier is the need to respond and adapt to both users and to the dynamics of the environment over long periods of time. In this talk, I will present my past and current research towards enabling robots with the social capabilities that will enable them to engage people over repeated interactions. I will also discuss limitations of the current state of the art in robotic technology suitable for realistic social environments, arguing that an improved understanding of how robots perceive, reason and act depending on their surrounding social context can lead to more natural, enjoyable and useful human-robot interactions in the long-term.

The lecture will be held online via Zoom.

Zoom link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/8986094213a