**********************************************************************
Autonomous Robots
Special Issue on "Socially Assistive Robotics"
**********************************************************************
Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) for socially assistive applications is a growing and increasingly popular research area at the intersection of robotics, health science, psychology, social science, and cognitive science. Assistive robotics has the potential to enhance the quality of life for large populations of users. A defining property of socially assistive robotics is its focus on the social interaction, rather than the physical interaction, between the robot and the human user. This is a challenging domain because the robots are interacting with vulnerable users, resulting in ethical issues. Hence, even as socially assistive robotic technology is still in its early stages of development, the next decade promises assistive robotic platforms and systems that will be used in hospitals, schools, and homes in therapeutic programs that monitor, encourage, and assist their users. It is therefore important that potential users, well beyond the technical community, become familiar with this growing technology and help shape its development toward its intended positive impact on numerous lives.
This special issue of Autonomous Robots solicits previously unpublished research papers on human interaction with autonomous robotic systems for assistive applications. We are especially interested in papers that focus on the use of social capabilities to assist humans in physical or cognitive tasks such as rehabilitation and training exercises, therapeutic and educational play, mobility, providing information, housework, etc. Research that validates and explains observed phenomena of human interaction with autonomous technologies is also of interest.
The main areas of interest include but are not limited to:
- Social and physical embeddedness
- Encouraging compliance, goal sharing, and transfer
- Designing behavioral HRI studies
- Modeling embodied empathy
- Experimental design for human-robot interaction
Submissions should be up to 14 pages and should follow the journal's style and presentation guidelines (see http://www.editorialmanager.com/auro/). To submit a manuscript, access the Autonomous Robots Web-based system, at http://www.editorialmanager.com/auro/.
Important dates:
- Submissions due for review: 15 January 2007
- Notification of acceptance: 2 April 2007
- Camera-ready version submitted: 1 May 2007
For more information contact Guest Editors:
Adriana Tapus,
_CLOAKING
or
Maja Mataric',
_CLOAKING
|
