Dr Amol Deshmukh

Research

Dr Amol Deshmukh is a social robotics researcher working with School of Psychology at University of Glasgow. He is a Roboticist and built his first social robot during his Bachelor's in Electronics. He completed his Ph.D from Heriot-watt University in Edinburgh in human-robot interaction investigating social verbal feedback strategies to influence users acceptance towards a social robot. Dr Deshmukh has worked on multiple European Union projects involving social robots in workplaces, child-robot interaction, public spaces, and rural environments and has more than 45 publications. He pioneered the first human-robot interaction study in a developing country to study user perception and technology acceptance of a social robot in a rural village in India [BBC news]. His recent work was to investigate the influence of a social robot to encourage handwashing behaviour for children in a rural school in India [BBC news]. He was the workshop chair for the inaugural workshop “Social robots and artificial agents for developing countries: Challenges and opportunities” at RO-MAN Conference, 2019 [Workshop Link]. He has worked on the following European Union projects:

 

 

 

Projects

MuMMer (2016-2019): MuMMER (MultiModal Mall Entertainment Robot) is a four-year, EU-funded project with the overall goal of developing a humanoid robot (based on Aldebaran's Pepper platform) that can interact autonomously and naturally in the dynamic environments of a public shopping mall, providing an engaging and entertaining experience to the general public. My current research in MuMMer project is focused on social signal processing, synthesise social signals to convey personality dimensions, intentions using parameterised gestures, multi-modal non-verbal behaviour generation. Machine learning to recognise engagement/disengagement of users, infer users interest and attention.

 

EMOTE (2012-2016): The project designed, developed and evaluated a new generation of artificial embodied tutors that have perceptive capabilities to engage in empathic interactions with learners in a shared physical space.

 

JAMES (2012): The project explored the core cognitive capabilities that are required for a robot bartender to interact with humans in a socially-appropriate manner.

 

LIREC (2008-2012): The main aim was to build a new generation of interactive, emotionally intelligent companion robots, capable of establishing long-term relationship with humans in real social environments like homes, offices etc.

 

Publications

Mary Ellen Foster, Bart Craenen, Amol Deshmukh et al., "MuMMER: Socially Intelligent Human-Robot Interaction in Public Spaces", AI-HRI 2019 Proceedings AAAI Fall Symposium Series, Arlington, VA - November, 2019. [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Sooraj K Babu, Unnikrishnan R, Shanker Ramesh, Parameswari Anitha and Rao R. Bhavani, "Influencing Hand-washing Behaviour With a Social Robot: HRI Study With School Children in Rural India", The 28TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), October, 2019, New Delhi, India. [pdf] [Article from BBC]

Unnikrishnan R, Amol Deshmukh, Shanker Ramesh, Sooraj K Babu, Parameswari Anitha and Rao R. Bhavani, "Design and Perception of a Social Robot to Promote Hand Washing among Children in a Rural Indian School", The 28TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), October, 2019, New Delhi, India. [pdf] [Article from IEEE spectrum]

Amol Deshmukh, Alexandre Mazel and Mary Ellen Foster, "Contextual Non-verbal Behaviour Generation for Humanoid Robot Using Text Sentiment", The 28TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), October, 2019, New Delhi, India. Late-breaking report [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Bart Craenen, Alessandro Vinciarelli and Mary Ellen Foster, "Shaping Robot Gestures to Shape Users' Perception: The Effect of Amplitude and Speed on Godspeed Ratings", In 6th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction, December 15–18, 2018, Southampton, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Sooraj Krishna, Akshay Nagarajan, Vennila Vilvanathan, Sivaprasad J. V. and Bhavani Rao R., "Technology Acceptance, Sociocultural Influence and Gender Perception of Robots: A Human Robot Interaction Study with Naive Users in Rural India", The 27TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August, 2018, Nanjing, China, August, 2018, Nanjing, China [pdf] [Article from IEEE spectrum] [Article from BBC] [Article from The Telegraph]

Bart G.W. Craenen, Amol Deshmukh, Mary Ellen Foster, and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "Shaping Gestures to Shape Personalities: The Relationship between Gesture Parameters, Attributed Personality Traits and Godspeed Scores", The 27TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August, 2018, Nanjing, China [pdf]

Bart G.W. Craenen, Amol Deshmukh, Mary Ellen Foster, and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "Do We Really Like Robots That Match Our Personality? the Case of Big-Five Traits, Godspeed Scores and Robotic Gestures", The 27TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August, 2018, Nanjing, China [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Bart G.W. Craenen, Mary Ellen Foster, and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "The More I Understand It, the Less I Like It: The Relationship between Understandability and Godspeed Scores for Robotic Gestures", The 27TH IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), August, 2018, Nanjing, China [pdf]

Bart G.W. Craenen, Amol Deshmukh, Mary Ellen Foster, and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "Shaping Gestures to Shape Personality: Big-Five Traits, Godspeed Scores and the Similarity-Attraction Effect", Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2018), July, 2018, Stockholm, Sweden [Extended Abstract pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Sooraj Krishna, Akshay Nagarajan, Vennila Vilvanathan, Sivaprasad J. V. and Bhavani Rao R., "HRI – "In the wild” In Rural India - A Feasibility Study", International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Social Robots in the Wild workshop, Chicago, USA, March 2018 [video] [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Katrin S. Lohan, Gnanathusharan Rajendran and Ruth Aylett, "Social Impact of recharging activity in long-term HRI and verbal strategies to manage user expectations during recharge", Journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI- Humanoid Robotics, 2018 [Article] [pdf]

Helen Hastie, Katrin Lohan, Amol Deshmukh, Frank Broz and Ruth Aylett, "The Interaction Between Voice and Appearance in the Embodiment of a Robot Tutor", The Ninth International Conference on Social Robotics November, 2017, Tsukuba, Japan [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Bart Craenen, Mary Ellen Foster and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "Modulating the Non-Verbal Social Signals of a Humanoid Robot", 19th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, November 2017, Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, (Demo Paper) [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Mary Ellen Foster and Alessandro Vinciarelli, "Perceptual Control Theory for Engagement and Disengagement of Users in Public Spaces", International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Vienna, Austria, Late-breaking report, March 2017 [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Mei Yii Lim, Ruth Aylett and Ginevra Castellano, "How Expressiveness of a Robotic Tutor is Perceived by Children in a Learning Environment", International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Christchurch, New Zealand, Late-breaking report, March 2016 [pdf]

Lynne Hall, Colette Hume, Sarah Tazzyman, Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett, Ginevra Castellano, Fotis Papadopoulos, Aidan Jones, Lee J. Corrigan, Ana Paiva, Patrícia Alves Oliveira, Tiago Ribeiro, Wolmet Barendregt, Sofia Serholt & Arvid Kappas, "Map Reading with an Empathic Robot Tutor", International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Christchurch, New Zealand, Extended Abstracts, March 2016 [pdf] [video]

Mei Yii Lim, Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett and L Hall. "A Treasure Hunt With An Empathic Virtual Tutor". In Proceedings of AAMAS, Demo, 2016 Singapore [pdf]

H.Hastie, M.Y. Lim, S. Janarthanam, Amol Deshmukh, R.Aylett, M.E. Foster, and L Hall. "I Remember You! Interaction with Memory for an Empathic Virtual Robotic Tutor". In Proceedings of AAMAS, 2016 Singapore [pdf]

Mary Ellen Foster, Amol Deshmukh, Srini Janarthanam, Mei Yii Lim, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett, "How does affective robot feedback influence learner experience in a real-world treasure hunt?" In Proceedings of First International Workshop on Educational Robots (WONDER), 2015 [pdf]

Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Amol Deshmukh, Ruth Aylett and Mary Ellen Foster (2015). "A Reusable Interaction Management Module: Use case for Empathic Robotic Tutoring". In Proceedings of SemDial, 2015 [pdf]

Mary Ellen Foster, Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Mei Yii Lim, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett, "Influencing the Learning Experience Through Affective Agent Feedback in a Real-World Treasure Hunt." In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2015), pages 1711-1712, Istanbul, May 2015 [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Aidan Jones, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Tiago Ribeiro, Ruth Aylett, Ana Paiva, Ginevra Castellano, Mary Ellen Foster, Lee J Corrigan, Fotios Papadopoulos, Eugenio Di Tullio, Pedro Sequeira, "An Empathic Robotic Tutor in a Map Application", (Demo Paper) Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, Pages 1923-1924 [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Aidan Jones, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Tiago Ribeiro, Ruth Aylett, Ana Paiva, Ginevra Castellano, Mary Ellen Foster, Lee Corrigan, Fotios, "An Empathic Robotic Tutor in a Map Application", Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Extended Abstracts (Demo), 311-311, Portland, USA [pdf]

Tiago Ribeiro, Patrícia Alves-Oliveira, Eugenio Di Tullio, Sofia Petisca, Pedro Sequeira, Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Mary Ellen Foster, Aidan Jones, Lee J Corrigan, Fotios Papadopoulos, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett, Ginevra Castellano, Ana Paiva, "The Empathic Robotic Tutor: Featuring the NAO Robot", Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction Extended Abstracts Pages 285-285, [pdf] [video]

Mary Ellen Foster, Mei Yii Lim, Amol Deshmukh, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen Hastie, Ruth Aylett, "Affective Feedback for a Virtual Robot in a Real-World Treasure Hunt", ICMI 2014 Workshop on Multimodal, Multi-Party, Real-World Human-Robot Interaction, Istanbul, Turkey, November 2014 [pdf]

Katrin S. Lohan, Amol Deshmukh, Mei Yii Lim, Ruth Aylett, "Spotting social interaction by using the robot energy consumption", AAAI 2014 Fall Symposium on Artificial Intelligence for Human-Robot Interaction, Arlington, VA, USA. [pdf]

Katrin Solveig Lohan, Amol Deshmukh, Ruth Aylett, "How Can a Robot Signal Its Incapability to Perform a Certain Task to Humans in an Acceptable Manner?", In Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2014), Edinburgh, Scotland, 2014 [pdf]

Patrícia Alves-Oliveira, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Ana Margarida Candeias, Amol Deshmukh, Tiago Ribeiro, Helen Hastie, Ana Paiva, Ruth Aylett, "Towards Dialogue Dimensions for a Robotic Tutor in Collaborative Learning Scenarios", In Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2014), Edinburgh, Scotland, 2014 [pdf]

Simon Keizer, Pantelis Kastoris, Mary Ellen Foster, Amol Deshmukh, Oliver Lemon, "Evaluating a Social Multi-User Interaction Model Using a Nao Robot", In Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (IEEE RO-MAN 2014), Edinburgh, Scotland, 2014. [pdf]

Mei Yii Lim, Mary Ellen Foster, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Amol Deshmukh, Helen Hastie and Ruth Aylett. 2014. "Let's go for a treasure hunt", Affective Agents Workshop, 14th International conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents, Boston, USA. [pdf]

Mei Yii Lim, Mary Ellen Foster, Srinivasan Janarthanam, Amol Deshmukh, Helen Hastie and Ruth Aylett. 2014. "Studying the Effects of Affective Feedback in Embodied Tutors", Workshop on Semantics of Dialogue (SemDial), Edinburgh, UK. [pdf]

Tiago Ribeiro, André Pereira, Amol Deshmukh, Ruth Aylett and Ana Paiva. "I’m the mayor: a robot tutor in Enercities-2", International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS, Paris 2014, Demo. [video] [pdf]

Amol Deshmukh, Ruth Aylett, "Exploring socially intelligent recharge behaviour for human-robot interaction. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction", March 3–6, 2014, Bielefeld, Germany, Late breaking report [pdf]

Srinivasan Janarthanam, Helen F. Hastie, Amol Deshmukh, Ruth Aylett, "Towards a serious game playing empathic robotic tutorial dialogue system". ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, March, 2014, Bielefeld, Germany, Late breaking report [pdf]