Undertaking Research with Humans within Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: Multimodal Elderly Care Systems

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become widespread in recent years and made tremendous progress thanks to automated learning and optimization. This paper outlines research methods within human-centered AI and robotics utilized in the Multimodal Elderly Care Systems (MECS 2021) research project. The project’s main research question asked how human activities and states can best be monitored by a mobile robot. A primary result is that sensors can be both effective and preferable while addressing increasing privacy concerns. Another result is that the user’s age impacts the preferred speed and distance for human/robot interaction. Research ethical considerations are also important for AI research and are presented in this paper.