Sharif Digital Repository

Autistic children are often impaired in initiating and responding to Joint Attention. In recent years, there has been an increase in the application of robots in diagnosis and treatment of autism. The purpose of the current research has been primarily to originate the proper therapeutic scenarios and to implement two interactive humanoid robots as therapy assistants in autism treatment in Iran. To this end, the humanoid robots were programmed and teleoperated via Microsoft Kinect Sensor and PhantomOmni Haptic Robot to elicit reactions consisting of imitation of humans by the humanoid robots and vice versa. In this paper, we elaborate on the therapeutic items that we have designed to improve... 

This study aims at examining the effect of Robot Assisted language learning (RALL) on the anxiety level and attitude in the English language learning classroom. Forty-six female students who were beginners at the age of 12 participated in this study and were randomly assigned into two groups of RALL (30 students) and non-RALL (16 students). The treatment was given by a teacher accompanied by a humanoid robot assistant for the RALL group. Two questionnaires of anxiety [15] and attitude [19] were utilized to measure the students' anxiety and attitude. The results of descriptive and t-tests indicated that there was lower anxiety and positive attitude towards English learning in the RALL group... 

The motivation of this work is to synthesize a kicking pattern for a humanoid robot with consideration of various objectives such as retaining its balance even after the kick is done and reducing the undesired angular momentum using both hands and torso. This kick pattern is designed so that a desirable ball velocity is achieved. In this paper, the law of conservation of angular momentum is used to generate a less energy consuming trajectory. Effectiveness of the proposed method is verified using computer simulation and is tested on Sharif CEDRA humanoid robot. Copyright © 2006 by ASME  

Treatment of cancer involves many invasive procedures that could be a source of distress in kids suffering from cancer. Distress itself can be an important obstacle in patients' acceptance of treatment and their adaptation to it, consequently reducing its efficiency. Distress symptoms, in a spectrum from mild to critical, are shown to be widespread in children struggling with cancer. In recent years to alleviate this psychological condition, researchers have proposed and examined several methods such as relaxation, hypnosis, desensitization, and distraction. This study presents a new approach to explore the impact of utilizing a humanoid robot as a therapy-assistant in dealing with patients'... 

Treating cancer encompasses many invasive procedures that can be a source of distress in oncology patients. Distress itself can be a major obstruction in the path of acceptance of treatment and the patient's adaptation to it, thereby reducing its efficiency. These distress symptoms have been found to be prevalent in children suffering from cancer, in a spectrum from mild to critical. In the past years in response to this psychological suffering, researchers have proposed and tested several methods such as relaxation, hypnosis, desensitization, and distraction. This paper propounds a new approach by exploring the effect of utilizing a humanoid robot as a therapy-assistive tool in dealing with... 

This study aimed to examine the effect of robot assisted language learning (RALL) on the anxiety level and attitude in English vocabulary acquisition amongst Iranian EFL junior high school students. Forty-six female students, who were beginners at the age of 12, participated in this study and were randomly assigned into two groups of RALL (30 students) and non-RALL (16 students). The textbook, the materials, as well as the teacher were the same in the two groups. However in the RALL group, the treatment was given by a teacher accompanied by a humanoid robot assistant. Two questionnaires of anxiety and attitude were utilized to measure the students’ anxiety and attitude (Horwitz et al. 1986;... 

This paper presents the design characteristics of a new robot Assistant for Social Aims (RASA), being an upper-torso humanoid robot platform currently under final stages of development. This project addresses the need for developing affordable humanoid platforms designed to be utilized in new areas of social robotics research, primarily teaching Persian Sign Language (PSL) to children with hearing disabilities. RASA is characterized by three features which are hard to find at the same time in today’s humanoid robots: its dexterous hand-arm systems enabling it to perform sign language, low development cost, and easy maintenance. In this paper, design procedures and considerations are briefly... 

This study explores the effect of RALL (Robot Assisted Language Learning) on instructing greeting to young EFL (English as Foreign Language) students in Tehran, Iran. To this end, 38 preschool EFL children ranging from 3 to 6 years old were randomly assigned to the RALL (19 students) and game-based (19 students) groups, and the greeting sentences were extracted from the Functional Communication in English book [1] and ESL library website scenarios. In addition, the robot for the RALL group was used as an assistant to the teacher while for the game-based group the instruction was based on gaming methods such as command, mystery bag, and pass the ball. The instructional duration for both... 

In this paper, three pairs of children with autism include a pair of twins, two siblings, and two classmates were enrolled in a 12-session robot-assisted group-games program. As many environmental factors were for the most part the same for the siblings as well as genetic factors for the twins, we were able to observe/compare the effect of the designed games on the participants individually and in paired-groups. The results indicated that all participants’ autism severity decreased after the course of the program. Improvement in social skills, social participation/avoidance, and detrimental social behaviors were also observed in the participants with high-functioning autism with close to... 

In this paper, a design and construction method for an omnidirectional vision system is described, including how to use it on autonomous soccer robots for object detection, localization and, also, collision avoidance in the middle size league of RoboCup. This vision system uses two mirrors, flat and hyperbolic. The flat mirror is used for detecting very close objects around the robot body and the hyperbolic one is used as a global viewing device to construct a world model for the soccer field. This world model contains information about the position and orientation of the robot itself and the position of other objects in a fixed coordinate system. In addition, a fast object detection method... 

Facial expression imitation with applications in the design of human robot interaction (HRI) systems is an active area of research. In this study, we propose an approach for real-time imitation of human facial expression by a humanoid social robot 'Alice'. Artificial neural network (ANN) and Kinect sensor are used for recognition and classifying of the facial expressions like happiness, sadness, fear, anger and surprise; with the Alice humanoid robot imitating the comprehended expressions. Results and experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. © 2016 IEEE  

In this paper, two online path planning methods are presented for SURENA III humanoid robot by using model predictive control scheme. The methods are general control schemes which can generate the online motions for walking of a humanoid robot. For lowering computational costs a three dimensional linear inverted pendulum model is used instead of the full dynamical model of the robot. The generated trajectories are then used for computing the zero-moment point (ZMP) of the robot and the joint torques. The resulted joint torques of the two methods are compared to torques obtained from Genetic Algorithm (GA) path planning method presented for SURENA III humanoid robot in previous studies. The... 

This paper presents the design process and construction of a mobile social robot companion "Arash" for educational and therapeutic intervention for children with chronic diseases; one which is based on their interests and needs. This study concentrates on children with cancer who suffer from physical pain caused by both the disease and its treatment. Moreover, cancer treatment causes emotional distress, which can reduce the efficiency of medications. Using social robots to interact with ill children in a hospital environment could decrease their distress, thereby improving the efficiency of the treatment. Arash is a 15 degrees-of-freedom cost effective humanoid mobile robot companion,... 

This paper introduces a novel robotic platform, called RASA (Robot Assistant for Social Aims). This educational social robot is designed and constructed to facilitate teaching Persian Sign Language (PSL) to children with hearing disabilities. There are three predominant characteristics from which design guidelines of the robot are generated. First, the robot is designed as a fully functional interactive social robot with children as its social service recipients. Second, it comes with the ability to perform PSL, which demands a dexterous upper-body of 29 actuated degrees of freedom. Third, it has a relatively low development cost for a robot in its category. This funded project, addresses... 

This paper introduces a novel robotic platform, called RASA (Robot Assistant for Social Aims). This educational social robot is designed and constructed to facilitate teaching Persian Sign Language (PSL) to children with hearing disabilities. There are three predominant characteristics from which design guidelines of the robot are generated. First, the robot is designed as a fully functional interactive social robot with children as its social service recipients. Second, it comes with the ability to perform PSL, which demands a dexterous upper-body of 29 actuated degrees of freedom. Third, it has a relatively low development cost for a robot in its category. This funded project, addresses... 

This study addresses optimal walking pattern generation for SURENA III humanoid robot in a stair-climbing scenario. To this end, the kinematic configuration of the 31-DOF humanoid robot is studied. Integrating the detailed dynamic properties of the robot, a comprehensive and precise dynamic model is developed for its lower-limb. In order to generate the optimal walking pattern for the considered humanoid robot, trajectories for feet and pelvis are first designed, and then joint angles are derived by means of inverse kinematics. Such a complete model provides the designer with the necessary tools to optimize the trajectory generation. Using two different types of objective functions, namely... 

Contact modeling plays a central role in motion planning, simulation and control of legged robots, as legged locomotion is realized through contact. The two prevailing approaches to model the contact consider rigid and compliant premise at interaction ports. Contrary to the dynamics model of legged systems with rigid contact (without impact) which is straightforward to develop, there is no consensus among researchers to employ a standard compliant contact model. Our main goal in this paper is to study the dynamics model structure of bipedal walking systems with rigid contact and a novel compliant contact model, and to present experimental validation of both models. For the model with rigid... 

In this study, a gait optimization routine is developed to generate walking patterns which demand the lowest friction forces for implementation. The aim of this research is to fully address the question “which walking pattern demands the lowest coefficient of friction amongst all feasible patterns?”. To this end, first, the kinematic structure of the considered 31 DOF (Degrees of Freedom) humanoid robot is investigated and a closed-form dynamics model for its lower-body is developed. Then, the medium through which the walking pattern generation is conducted is presented. In this medium, after designing trajectories for the feet and the pelvis, the joint space variables are obtained, using... 

One of the main issues in the field of social and cognitive robotics is the robot’s ability to recognize emotional states and emotional interaction between robots and humans. Through effective emotional interaction, robots will be able to perform many tasks in human society. In this research, we have developed a robotic platform and a vision system to recognize the emotional state of the user through its facial expressions, which leads to a more realistic humanrobot interaction (HRI). First, a number of features are extracted according to points detected by a vision system from the face of the user. Then, the emotional state of the user is analyzed with the help of these features. For the... 

In this study, a gait optimization routine is developed to generate walking patterns which demand the lowest friction forces for implementation. The aim of this research is to fully address the question which walking pattern demands the lowest coefficient of friction amongst all feasible patterns?. To this end, first, the kinematic structure of the considered 31 DOF (Degrees of Freedom) humanoid robot is investigated and a closed-form dynamics model for its lower-body is developed. Then, the medium through which the walking pattern generation is conducted is presented. In this medium, after designing trajectories for the feet and the pelvis, the joint space variables are obtained, using the...