Abstract:‍

Over the last decade, there has been significant investment in humanoid and human-friendly robotics platforms.  In certain areas, robots have successfully entered our lives, vacuuming our floors, cutting our lawns, and delivering our groceries. Yet in other areas, human-robot collaboration has not yet hit the mark.  Fluent, beneficial, long term engagement still eludes us as the market failures of the social robots Anki, Jibo, and Kuri attest - last year even Softbank's Pepper was laid off.  This talk looks at some of the challenges for achieving collaborative robots that people want to live and work with.

Bio:

Elizabeth Croft is currently Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and has recently been appointed Vice-President Academic and Provost at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada commencing July 1, 2022. She is recognised internationally as an expert in the field of human-robot interaction. Her work advances the design of intelligent controllers and interaction methods that underpin how people and autonomous, collaborative systems can work together in a safe, predictable, and helpful manner. Elizabeth is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Canadian Academy of Engineers and the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

‍