New Horizon 2020 robotics projects, 2016: REELER

In 2016, the European Union co-funded 17 new robotics projects from the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation. 16 of these resulted from the robotics work programme, and 1 project resulted from the Societal Challenges part of Horizon 2020. The robotics work programme implements the robotics strategy developed by SPARC, the Public-Private Partnership for Robotics in Europe (see the Strategic Research Agenda).

EuRobotics regularly publishes video interviews with projects, so that you can find out more about their activities. This week features REELER: Responsible Ethical Learning with Robotics.

Objectives

The project aims at aligning roboticists’ visions of a future with robots with empirically-based knowledge of human needs and societal concerns through a new proximity-based human-machine ethics that take into account how individuals and community connect with robot technologies.
The main outcome of REELER is a research-based roadmap presenting:

ethical guidelines for Human Proximity Levels,
prescriptions for how to include the voice of new types of users and affected stakeholders through Mini-Publics,
assumptions in robotics through socio-drama
agent-based simulations of the REELER research for policymaking.

At the core of these guidelines is the concept of collaborative learning, which permeates all aspects of REELER and will guide future SSH-ICT research.

Expected Impact

Integrating the recommendations of the REELER Roadmap for responsible and ethical learning in robotics in future robot design processes will enable the European robotics community to addresses human needs and societal concerns. Moreover, the project will give powerful instruments able to foster networking and exploit potentialities of future robotics projects.