Recent ISR Events
The ISR Director Professor Atta Badii presented the opening paper as well as chaired the 6th CRI (www.companionable.net/CRI), co-located with the AAL Forum 2011, 26-28th Sep2011.
The ISR Director was a co-organiser and presenter of the AmI-11 Workshop "Integration of AMI and AAL Platforms in the Future Internet Initiative"; co-located with the International Joint Conference on Ambient Intelligence, 16-18th Nov.2011, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
ISR organised the 5th CRI Workshop, on March 8th, 2011, Brussels; Professor Badii opened the workshop with a keynote on HRI interfaces to support advanced Human-Robot teamwork.
Professor Badii presented a paper on the theme of Privacy-by-design for Internet-of-Things Architectures; at the 5th International Workshop on Trustworthy Internet of People, Things & Services" co-located with the IoT 2010 Conference, November 29 -December 1, 2010, Tokyo, Japan
Professor Badii presented the opening address at the 4th CRI Workshop, 30th September 2010, Brussels; the theme was: user-driven persona-preferences-based prioritisation of requirements and usability evaluation of Companion Robots; using the (UI-REF) Methodology.
ISR had two stands at the ICT 2010 Brussels Exhibition, Brussels; for CompanionAble project and the MoveOn Project; we also held a research networking session on Companion Robotics. The ISR Director, Professor Badii, delivered the key-note and moderated the discussion.
ISR at the Innovation Convention
The CompanionAble Project, led by Professor Atta Badii, ISR Director, University of Reading, was selected as one of only two initiatives from amongst 50 “star innovation projects” to be shown to the EU President Jose Manuel Barroso and the EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Marie Geoghegan-Quinn, at the European Innovation Convention in Brussels, December 5-6, 2011.
One of the stars of the project, Hector the Companion Robot, welcomed the EU delegation to the stand where Professor Atta Badii demonstrated some of Hector's capabilities as an assistive companion robot.
Some of the care support facilities including diary management, aide memoire services, for example reminders for taking medicines on time, and, setting up video-conferencing sessions were demonstrated to the EU president and the Commissioner. Professor Atta Badii also demonstrated the fall detection capabilities of the system and explained how in emergencies, such as a fall, Hector could help the remote control centre assess how serious the fall is and what kind of emergency help may be needed.
President Barroso asked about the extent of industrial participation for exploitation; Professor Atta Badii explained that several industrial Partners were involved within the CompanionAble project and through Innovation Partnerships, Hector's selected capabilities could be adopted as ready-to-integrate ‘Plug-and-Perform' Companion Robot solutions offered to suit various home settings to support assisted independent living.
The EC President and the Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science visit The CompanionAble stand at the European Innovation Convention 5th December 2011, Professor Atta Badii and Hector the CompanionAble Robot greet the visitors and demonstrate some of Hector’s capabilities.