SocNavAssist: A Haptic Shared Autonomy Framework for Social Navigation Assistance of Mobile Telepresence Robots

This study used the concept of shared affordance space to explore students’ perceptions of the use of a telepresence robot in a face-to-face classroom. Results from this qualitative pilot study suggest the telepresence robot has the potential to provide enough autonomy and agency for both the remote user and the in-class students to perceive a shared affordance space. Robot users and classmates use human pronouns to describe the robot user and discuss a process of adjusting to its presence. The physical configuration of the classroom can either facilitate or hinder this process. The research provides greater understanding of the experiences of students in a face-to-face classroom that includes remote students attending class using a telepresence robot. It can help educators design and implement these experiences in a way that creates a beneficial classroom experience for both in-class and remote learners.

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Moral navigation and child fostering in Chiawa, Zambia

Africa ◽

10.1017/s000197202100005x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 91 (2) ◽

pp. 249-269

Author(s):

Sarah C. White ◽

Shreya Jha

Keyword(s):

Economic Status ◽

Well Being ◽

Collective Good ◽

Geographical Proximity ◽

Birth Parents ◽

Social Navigation ◽

Personal Benefit ◽

Child Fostering ◽

And Migration ◽

A Site

AbstractThis article explores the movement of children between households in Zambia as a site of ‘moral navigation’. Moral navigation extends Henrik Vigh's concept of social navigation from contexts of conflict and migration to more socially stable contexts in which well-being depends critically on people's ability to manage relationships. The live, dynamic and mobile character of these relationships means that they require active, real-time cultivation and response. While having practical objectives, these negotiations are also moral, articulated with ideas of what ought to be, and seeking to fulfil sometimes competing ethical projects. Life history interviews present three main perspectives: recollections of times in childhood spent away from birth parents; birth parents’ reflections on having a child living with others; and adults’ accounts of taking in other people's children. Strong norms of kinship unity and solidarity notwithstanding, in practice terms of engagement are differentiated through gender, marital, social and economic status, plus relational and geographical proximity. The pursuit of personal benefit contains the seeds of both contradiction and convergence with the collective good, as a relational understanding of moral selves sees one's own gain as proper, rightful and virtuous when it is realized in and through providing for others.

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Design and development of a navigation assistance system for visually impaired individuals

Proceedings of the 3rd International Convention on Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology - ICREATE '09 ◽

10.1145/1592700.1592702 ◽

2009 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

J. Zhang ◽

S. K. Ong ◽

A. Y. C. Nee

Keyword(s):

Visually Impaired ◽

Assistance System ◽

Design And Development ◽

Navigation Assistance

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Robot death care: A study of funerary practice

International Journal of Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/1367877920939093 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 603-621

Author(s):

Hannah Gould ◽

Michael Arnold ◽

Tamara Kohn ◽

Bjørn Nansen ◽

Martin Gibbs

Keyword(s):

Digital Technologies ◽

Humanoid Robots ◽

High Tech ◽

The Dead ◽

Cultural Anxieties ◽

Telepresence Robots ◽

Death Care ◽

And Robotics ◽

Robotic Technologies

Across the globe, human experiences of death, dying, and grief are now shaped by digital technologies and, increasingly, by robotic technologies. This article explores how practices of care for the dead are transformed by the participation of non-human, mechanised agents. We ask what makes a particular robot engagement with death a breach or an affirmation of care for the dead by examining recent entanglements between humans, death, and robotics. In particular, we consider telepresence robots for remote attendance of funerals; semi-humanoid robots officiating in a religious capacity at memorial services; and the conduct of memorial services by robots, for robots. Using the activities of robots to ground our discussion, this article speaks to broader cultural anxieties emerging in an era of high-tech life and high-tech death, which involve tensions between human affect and technological effect, machinic work and artisanal work, humans and non-humans, and subjects and objects.

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