FORSocialRobots

Bavarian Research Association FORSocialRobots - Social skills for automated systems and robots

The association

Robotics is developing into a key technology for value creation, improved working conditions and support across all application domains in industry, the service sector, medicine and care, as well as in the private sphere. Wherever humans and autonomous technical systems should and want to cooperate, socially intelligent and adaptable interaction is crucial for pleasant, efficient and accepted collaboration between humans and machines. There is therefore enormous potential in the field of social robotics in particular, which will have a decisive influence on the success of robotic applications in the future.

Unresolved challenges in the field of social robotics lie in the autonomous interaction of robots with humans and the design of goal-oriented and accepted holistic social communication and cooperation between robots and humans. It must be ensured that communication is as natural as possible and does not have a frightening effect on humans. The complexity of social interaction and communication also poses a challenge in terms of technical implementation. In addition to the currently limited technical functionality of the robots, further challenges currently lie in the high costs of adapting socially appropriate behavior in a wide variety of complex application scenarios.

The consortium's vision in FORSocialRobots is for humans and robots to work together in flexible teams in all areas of daily life in a goal-oriented manner and for new robot applications to be realized in the shortest possible time. The FORSocialRobots project therefore aims to make a decisive contribution to improving the social capabilities of robots in six relevant fields of robotic applications (inspection, logistics, production, service, retirement home and dementia center) and in five scientific sub-projects (architecture of social capabilities, social situational communication, socially adaptive and proactive interaction, simulation and validation of socially cognitive robots in the digital twin and human-robot interaction in the work context), thereby increasing their effectiveness and acceptance among potential users and supporting completely new technical developments.

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/forsocialrobots/

Information

Launching date

01.2024

End

12.2026

Funded by

Bavarian Research Foundation