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Meet KASPAR KASPAR is a child-sized humanoid robot developed by the Adaptive Systems Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire. |
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Research
KASPAR is being used to study human-robot interaction as part of the European RobotCub Project, which aims to build an open-source robot platform for cognitive development research. The Adaptive Systems Research Group is investigating the use of gestures, expressions, synchronisation and imitation. In addition the robot may be used for developmental studies and interaction games. This family of
robots have been used in the past in the Aurora
project which investigated the possible use of robotic systems
as therapeutic or educational tools to encourage social interaction
skills in children with Autism. They are currently being used also
in our investigations with children with autism, part of the
European FP6 IROMEC project and
the European FP7 ROBOSKIN project. IROMEC project acknowledges
the important role of play in child development and targets
children who are prevented from playing, either due to cognitive,
developmental or physical impairments which affect their playing
skills, investigating how robotic toys can empower
them to discover the range of play styles from
solitary to social and cooperative play.
The ROBOSKIN project will develop new skin sensor
technologies that can provide tactile feedback from large areas of
the robot body. Our team at UH will help to develop cognitive
mechanisms that use this tactile feedback to improve human-robot
interaction capabilities and implement it in the problem domain of
robot assisted play for children with autism. |
Design Rationale
and Construction Our aim is to study what types of human-robot interactions a minimal set of expressive robot features can afford. The goal is not perfect realism, but optimal realism for rich interaction. KASPAR has 8 degrees of freedom in the head and neck and 6 in the arms and hands. The face is a silicon-rubber mask, which is supported on an aluminium frame. It has 2 DOF eyes fitted with video cameras, and a mouth capable of opening and smiling. |
Additional
information
The minimally expressive robot
KASPAR is described in
this
article. KASPAR work in progress (MPEG video, 17M) Latest Video of KASPAR (WMV video, 13.5M) |
Research
and DesignTeam Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn Prof. Chrystopher Nehaniv Dr. David Lee Dr. Ben Robins
Andrew Appleby Mike Blow |
Assif Mirza |
Media coverage
Links
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Contact Please send any correspondence to Ben Robins, Adaptive Systems Research Group, School of Computer Science,
University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts
AL10 9AB, U.K.
Copyright
The Adaptive
Systems Research Group is generally happy for anyone to make use of
the video and publicity materials here. However, we retain copyright
in the video and photographs, and make it a condition of use that
our explicit permission is sought and obtained in order to
incorporate any whole or part of the materials contained here into
other works, websites or publications.
For permission to use any whole or part of these photographic or video materials please contact: Prof. Dr.
Kerstin Dautenhahn, URL: http://homepages.feis.herts.ac.uk/~comqkd E-mail: K.Dautenhahn@herts.ac.uk Fax: +44-1707-284-303 Tel: +44-1707-284-321 |
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© Adaptive Systems
Research Group, University of Hertfordshire
2006 |