Joint project on Cognitively and Empathically Intelligent Collaborating Robots (KEIKO) between TU Clausthal and University of Göttingen

In six different subprojects, trust estimation and building between humans and collaborating robots (cobots), prediction of human motion trajectories, adaptation and optimization of cobot motions, human behavior patterns, the acquisition of physiological and psychological parameters, and data fusion are explored.

Data-driven modeling of human behavior as well as machine prediction of human action intentions and motion trajectories will be used to make predictions for controlling a cobot. On the other hand, emotion-based parameters will be derived from neuropsychological investigations, whose contactless measurement in interaction with wearables, wireless sensors worn on the body, will create the data basis that makes emotionally empathetic cobots possible.

Research into emotion, cognition and behavior, and how these can be modulated by environmental conditions and individual differences, also taking into account social aspects; detecting action errors due to incorrect mutual intention and movement predictions, and conflict-free avoidance or mitigation of errors are thus the goals of the collaborative research. The findings are to be demonstrated on a cobot, which at the end of the project should be capable of carrying out a simple (dis)assembly task hand in hand with a human.

The project is being funded by the Ministry of Science and Culture in Lower Saxony as part of the SPRUNG program with over 1.7 million euros. From January 1, 2023, KEIKO will be centrally coordinated at the Simulation Science Center Göttingen-Clausthal and implemented at the demonstrator.

Collaborative partners are Prof. Dr. Anne Schacht and Prof. Dr. Florentin Wörgötter from the University of Göttingen as well as Prof. Dr. Jörg Müller, Prof. Dr. Andreas Reinhardt and Prof. Dr. Christian Rembe from the TU Clausthal. Prof. Dr. Michael Prilla, who moved from TU Clausthal to the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2022, is also working on the project.

https://www.simzentrum.de/en/research-projects/keiko/