How can an assistive robot handle the clothing of a person that it is assisting? This fundamental, practical question forms the basis of a forthcoming keynote presentation at ERF Rimini: Cloth manipulation in human-robot interaction in assistive settings. The keynote speaker will be Carme Torras, Research Professor at the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC).
The premise is that assistive robots should be able to collaborate with care-givers and patients in tasks often involving textiles. However, manipulating cloth items in a versatile way remains a challenging open problem in robotics. Developments within the EU-funded CLOTHILDE project, headed by Professor Torras, have made important progress in this area. Within this fascinating keynote, Professor Torras will include some project-developed prototypes displaying the required skills and also open out her presentation to address ethical factors that roboticists need to consider in this domain. Further background on the presentation and Professor Torras’s background can be found on the ERF Rimini website