392105 Socially Assistive Robots: Theory and Practice (S) (WiSe 2023/2024)

The seminar conveys research developments in the field of socially assistive robots (SARs). It introduces the relevant areas for the development of social agents, which are crucial for an architecture that controls such a robot (embodiment, human-oriented perception, dialogue, user-modelling, intentional behavior planning). Further, the focus is on various use cases of SARs (cognitive assistance, tutoring, mental health).
Building on this theoretical basis, the exercise will give students the opportunity to gain practical hands-on experience in the development process of SARs. Over the course of the semester, the students will work in groups on their own small architecture. They will start with small area specific tasks in the first half of the semester and work on a more elaborate SAR use case in the second half.
The small tasks, a presentation and a report (implementation and documentation with theoretical background) of the use case are part of the “Prüfungsleistung” of the seminar and the exercise. Some programming experience in Python is recommended.