GEERHEAD
Cody’s Altec Lansing speakers that he
uses to communicate.
they would have preferred the
robot not to touch them.
Participant’s faces were monitored
by a camera, as well.
While the subjects did like to be
touched for instrumental reasons
(which agreed with the researchers’
first hypothesis), the subjects did
not like to be warned before being
touched (which was against the
researchers’ second hypothesis).
This will likely play a key role in
future research and development.
Conclusion
The Georgia Tech researchers are confident that the
Cody research could lead to a real robot assistant to make
nurses’ lives easier and to help take up the slack created by
the nursing shortage.
The research is amply supported by Hstar Technologies,
an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Willow
Garage (commercial robotics firm), and NSF Grant IIS-
0705130. SV
SERVO 06.2011 13
