Medical Assistance Systems

Manuel Scheibl and Julian Leichert successfully participated in the IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) in Kitakyushu, Japan, where they presented their work.

Julian Leichert presented the paper “Virtual Agent Tutors in Sheltered Workshops: A Feasibility Study on Attention Training for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities”. The study investigates whether virtual tutors can be used for attention training in workshops for people with disabilities.
Manuel Scheibl presented “Sense4HRI: A ROS 2 HRI Framework for Physiological Sensor Integration and Synchronized Logging”, a framework that integrates physiological sensor data into human-robot interaction studies and records it in a time-synchronized manner.

The plenary talk by Prof. Aude Billard was particularly memorable.
Her argument: Humanoid robots do not need to be modeled after the human body; rather, they can utilize movements and designs that are not even possible for humans. So instead of asking how closely a robot can resemble a human, the question should be, conversely, where it should meaningfully go beyond human capabilities.
In addition to the conference program, the itinerary included company tours at TOTO and YASKAWA, two Kitakyushu-based firms with very different connections to robotics and sensor technology.
The weather was excellent all week, which made the trips between the conference venue and the city very pleasant.

The two returned with new contacts, exciting impressions, and a long reading list.