The "Star Wars" saga is continuing after almost 40 years of pop culture relevancy. Fans are lining up to see their favorite characters return to the silver screen, including a variety of droids.
The enduring popularity of R2-D2 and C-3PO shows the fascination many people have with artificial intelligence and robotics. Even if one will have their own R2-D2 or C-3PO soon, however, a number of researchers at the University of Notre Dame are working on a project that strives to make droids more science fact rather than just science fiction.
Assistant professor of computer science, engineering and of psychology Sidney D'Mello, as well as his colleagues at the university are developing a software system that can detect when a person's focus shifts from a task and help the individual to refocus. The researchers try to design a computer interface that is intelligent enough not only to spot a user's waning attention but also to take the appropriate action.
The system's software uses a commercial eye tracker in order to follow a person's eye movements, according to Science Daily. The system also uses a webcam to track a person's facial features and the interaction patterns. The system can pause the interaction in case that determines that the person's mind is wandering. Then it notifies the person and it's setting a different type of interaction.
The work of the team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame also tracks emotions such as boredom, frustration, confusion and delight, in order to increase the bandwidth of interaction. This way it becomes possible to encompass what people feel and think in addition to what they do or say. The team tries to develop robots able to sense and adapt to people.
Another project builds machine learning algorithms and computer vision. The team of researchers also explores coordination of people in order to implement the findings in intelligent robots able to automatically adapt their behavior to interact with humans, according to a paper published by the University of Nebraka.
