News

16 October 2024
The first keynote talk at the Robotics in Africa Forum at IROS 2024 featured the CSSR4Africa project. Research Associates and research assistants working on the CSSR4Africa project also gave lightning presentations focussing on core elements of the research. These presentations, along with accompanying abstracts and posters, are available on the Publications page.

10 September 2024
A new version D2.1 Use Case Scenario Definition is available here.

9 September 2024
A new version D3.1 System Architecture is available here.
A new version D3.2 Software Engineering Standards Manual is available here. A new version D3.4 System Integration and Quality Assurance Manual is available here. The changes are recorded in the document history.

5 September 2024
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. The changes are recorded in the document history.

21 August 2024
A new version of deliverable D3.1 System Architecture is now available here.

21 August 2024
A new version of deliverable D3.3 Software Installation Manual is now available here.
A repository for software installation scripts has been added; this helps automate the installation process.
The README files in the main cssr4africa parent repository and in pepper_interface_tests directory have been updated. There is also a new version of naoqi_driver repository.

19 August 2024
A new version of deliverable D1.2 Rwandan Cultural Knowledge is now available here.

26 July 2024
A new version of deliverable D8.1 Progress Report is now available here.

9 May 2024
A new version of deliverable D3.1 System Architecture is now available here. A copy of the detailed system architecture in Fig. 2 showing the constituent ROS nodes, topics, and services is available here.

5 April 2024
We have launched a pilot survey at CMU-Africa to acquire cultural knowledge about how to interact respectfully with people in Rwanda. The knowledge that is gathered will be used by our social robots when they engage with people, informing their verbal, non-verbal, and spatial interaction. The survey is available in Kinyarwanda here and in English here.

2 April 2024
Deliverable D4.1 Sensor Test is now available here and Deliverable D5.1 Actuator Test is available here. This is a milestone in that it means we now can access data from all of Pepper’s sensors and can control all of Pepper’s actuators using ROS. A new version of Deliverable D3.3 Software Installation Manual that includes this test software is now available here.

2 April 2024
A new LaTeX template for deliverables with this change can be found on the wiki. This version has a new CSSRforAfrica.cls file which now inserts the revision date in the footer, not the submission date, provided the version number is not 1.0.

23 February 2024
A new version of deliverable D1.2 Rwandan Cultural Knowledge is now available here. This has a version of the questionnaire in Kinyarwanda.

1 February 2024
New version of deliverable D3.1 System Architecture is now available here. A copy of the detailed system architecture in Fig. 2 showing the constituent ROS nodes, topics, and services is available here.

A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. The changes are recorded in the document history.

30 January 2024
New version of Deliverable D2.2 Robot Behavior Specification here

26 January 2024
All deliverables now have a revision date on the cover page showing the date the latest version was uploaded. The initial submission date remains. New templates with this change can be found on the wiki.

25 January 2024
Deliverable D3.1 System Architecture is now available here. A copy of the detailed system architecture in Fig. 2 showing the constituent ROS nodes, topics, and services is available here.

A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.16, introduces several changes as a result of the completion of the system architecture. These changes are recorded in the document history.

15 January 2024
A poster describing the project is now available in PowerPoint and pdf.

9 January 2024
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.13, updates Deliverables D4.2.1 Person Detection and Localization, D4.2.2 Face & Eye Detection and Localization Task, D4.2.3 Sound Detection and Localization, D4.2.4 Robot Localization, D4.2.5 Camera Calibration, D4.3.1 Tablet PC Event, D4.3.2 Speech Event, D5.2 Animate Behavior Subsystem, D5.3 Attention Subsystem, and D5.5.1 Gesture Execution.

31 December 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.12, updates Deliverables D2.2 Robot Behavior Specification and D2.3 Visitor Behavior Specification to simplify the objectives and align them better with D3.1 System Architecture Design.

Deliverables D2.2 Robot Behavior Specification and D2.3 Visitor Behavior Specification are now available.

Deliverable D3.2 has been updated to simplify the CSSR4Africa ROS package directory structure for the system architecture subsystems by consolidating all the constituent nodes into one package, cssr_system, rather than having a separate package for each subsystem.

Deliverable D8.1 Progress Report has been submitted.

27 November 2023
Workshop update: There is a new format for the workshop on Culturally Sensitive Social Robotics for All (CSSR4All) at the 21st International Conference on Advanced Robotics, ICAR 2023, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 5th December, 2 pm - 6 pm. We have two great invited speakers: Barbara Bruno, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, and Raquel Ros, PAL Robotics, Spain.

20 November 2023
The second draft of Deliverable D1.2 Rwandan Cultural Knowledge is now available here. Please refer to the document history for a list of the changes.

16 November 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.8, updates Deliverable D4.1 Sensor Tests to remove the need for either a driver or a stub.

7 November 2023
The first draft of Deliverable D2.1 Use Case Scenario Definition (version 1.0) is now available here.

1 November 2023
A new draft of Deliverable D3.2 Software Engineering Standards Manual (version 1.3) is now available here. This version has some important changes to Appendices A and B which contain the mandatory standards (see Document History on p. 39).

Deliverable D3.4 System Integration and Quality Assurance Manual is now available here.

27 October 2023
The deliverables page on the website now lists all deliverables due over the course of the project.

A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.7, updates Deliverable D5.1 Actuator Tests to use an average angular velocity, thereby allowing the joint actuators to be controlled by specifying the duration of the rotation.

26 October 2023
The wiki has a new page, Resources, with links to the various images that are used in CSSR4Africa documents, web pages, and wiki pages.

The first draft of Deliverable D3.2 Software Engineering Standards Manual is now available here.

25 October 2023
The first draft of Deliverable D1.2 Rwandan Cultural Knowledge is now available here. This first draft of the deliverable just addresses the survey questionnaire, so that it can be validated before conducting the survey.

23 October 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.5, specifies new names for the ROS nodes in Deliverables D4.3.1 and D4.3.1, and includes the creation of a ROS node in Task 5.4.1 Cultural Knowledge Ontology & Knowledge Base.

28 September 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.4, specifies new unit test requirements for deliverables in work packages 4 and 5.

11 September 2023
Workshop announcement: Culturally Sensitive Social Robotics for All CSSR4All at the 21st International Conference on Advanced Robotics, ICAR 2023, Abu Dhabi, UAE, 5th December, 2 pm - 6 pm.

The goal of this workshop is to acquire cultural knowledge about acceptable modes of communication in different regions, focussing mainly on MENA and sub-Saharan Africa, so that we can equip robots with the ability to interact sensitively and politely with people in those regions using spatial, non-verbal, and verbal modes of communication.

11 September 2023
A new version of Deliverable D3.3 Software Installation Manual is now available here.

15 August 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version, v. 2.0, assigns responsibility for all tasks to reflect the estimated effort, balanced between partners on the basis of funding.

6 August 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version has provisionally assigned responsibility for some tasks to CMU-Africa.

A first draft of the CSSR4Africa statement of work (SoW) is available here.

3 August 2023
Deliverable D7.1 Online Presence is now available here.

1 August 2023
A new version the CSSR4Africa work plan is available here. This version has revised task start dates and durations.

There is now a wiki to provide a forum for exchanging information among the partners in the project consortium. The majority of the material available there is concerned with the effective operation of the project, e.g., project meetings, project reports, references, and templates. Removed this material from the website, which now focusses on providing information to others.

31 July 2023
Deliverable D3.3 Software Installation Manual is now available here.

26 July 2023
The CSSR4Africa work plan is now available here.

20 July 2023
The Afretec Inclusive Digital Transformation (IDT) Research Grants kick-off meeting was held online on Thursday 20 July. Key resources from the meeting include the slides presented by the organizers. The CSSR4Africa slides are here.