Home Research Publications Teaching Contact

Paul e. Baxter

Towards 'Useful' Social Cognitive Robots

Paul E. Baxter


I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lincoln (U.K.) in the School of Computer Science, and a member of the Lincoln Centre for Atonomous Systems (L-CAS) and of the Autism Research and Innovation Centre (ARIC).

My research interests are broadly in the overlap between (developmental) cognitive robotics and social human-robot interaction, with particular interest in the domains of education and social/care assistance. My research can therefore be summarised as being on Social Cognitive Robots.

My overall goal is to develop robotic and autonomous systems that can assist people through social interaction. To achieve the desired outcomes, I believe it is necessary to go beyond the surface aspects of these autonomous systems (e.g. appearance and reactive behaviours) and address the human-centric cognitive aspects of behaviour. As an inherently multi-disciplinary problem, I seek to integrate principles and methods from computer science (including robotics and machine learning) and psychology (including social and cognitive psychology and human factors) to develop autonomous systems that are validated by and tested in human-centred empirical evaluations.

This approach is both interesting and necessary for the two application areas that I am primarily interested in: (1) making social robots more useful in assisting people in their lives, and (2) making use of social cognitive robots as exploratory tools/platforms to investigate cognition and social behaviour to better understand ourselves as humans.


Paul Baxter University of Lincoln Staff Page Paul Baxter Google Scholar Profile Paul Baxter ORCID ID Paul Baxter ResearchGate Profile Paul Baxter Zotero Profile Paul Baxter GitHub Profile L-CAS Homepage

October 2022: I am pleased to have joined the Grae Matta Foundation as a Research Director. This voluntary position entails facilitating research to support the Foundation's goal of creating formal standards for Mental Health in the area of Higher Education (in the UK). Update 2023: I am no longer involved, as I became unable to support them the way I had envisaged and promised - my fault, not theirs.

June 2022: Very happy to be able to report that Alex Gabriel passed his PhD viva, with only minor corrections. Well done Dr Gabriel!

October 2021: Another office change (this time to a room with an opening window!), now to INB3113.

January 2019: With Alex Gabriel, we have published a small dataset of human actions recorded outside, as part of his research on intention recognition in HRI - with primary application to agricultural robotics. The dataset is freely available from here, with further details (you just have to request access from us).

March 2018: We had around 180 10-year-olds visit the School of Computer Science to get some experience programming robots, and in particular the robot's verbal interactivity. According to all reports, the children had a very good day, and went back to their respective schools. This event was run in conjunction with, and was supported by the Mukherjee Trust, who reported on the day.

February 2018: I am involved in the organisation of two great workshops in the next few months, which will be informative and inspirational. First is the Workshop on Social Robots in Therapy at HRI'18 (Chicago, USA), and then is Workshop on The Near Future of Children's Robotics at IDC'18 (Trondheim, Norway).

January 2018: This week we welcomed Alexander Gabriel to L-CAS: he has started as my PhD student on the RASberry project, focusing on safe human-robot interaction for in-field transportation in agriculture.

August 2017: I'm currently at the 3rd Summer School on Social Human-Robot Interaction, where I've presented some of the nuts and bolts of experimental HRI, and reporting standards. It's more interesting than it sounds...

May 2017: I'm very happy to serve as the Theory and Methods theme chair at HRI 2018, which will be held in Chicago. Paper submission deadline is the 6th of October, so plan your papers!

April 2017: I've moved office and now reside in the new Isaac Newton Building, along with the rest of the School of Computer Science. For all office hours and drop-in sessions, please find me in INB3119 (unless otherwise stated).

March 2017: Update January 2018: this position has now been filled, and is no longer available. I'm hiring! As part of the collaborative RASberry project (with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences), I'm currently advertising for a fully funded (for UK/EU) PhD position to work on Human-Robot Interaction in agricultural settings (specifically robots fetching and carrying for people picking strawberries grown in polytunnels).


top

Research



My research is loosely organised around three inter-related themes, introduced below: (1) learning from humans; (2) learning with humans; and (3) long-term social human-robot interaction. In general, I seek to introduce, develop, and evaluate autonomously operating technologies not merely for the sake of it, but with the intention of either directly helping people, or establishing and understanding principles that may facilitate such help in the future.

Guiding Robot Guides: Co-I, March 2023 - June 2023, project lead: Francesco Del Duchetto. Funded by the Lincoln Policy Hub Fund.

TARICS: Co-I, April 2022 - March 2023, project lead: Maria Jose Galvez Trigo. Trustworthy Accessible Robots for Inclusive Cultural experienceS. Funded by UKRI TASHub.

Core Equipment Fund: Co-I, 2020, project lead: Andrew Hunter. Funded by EPSRC.

Robot tour guide deployment in local museum, LINDSEY: Co-I, 2018-2021, project lead: Marc Hanheide. Funded by Lincolnshire County Council.

Robotics and AI outreach programme for disadvantaged children: PI, 2018. Funded by the Mukherjee and Johnson charity.

PhD studentship, safe HRI in agri-robotics: Co-I, 2017-2020, project lead: Pal From.

Academic hardware grant: PI, 2016. Funded by NVidia.

I am very fortunate to work with, and to have worked with, many very talented people as a supervisor (both as Director of Studies and as 2nd supervisor), both at Plymouth University (PU), and now at the University of Lincoln (UoL):

Alex Elias: (PhD, UoL, 2nd supervisor), 2022-present, "Co-creation and trust to address regulatory, ethical, and interactional challenges in Digital Farming"

Dr. Alex Gabriel: (PhD, UoL, Director of Studies), 2018-2022, "Context-Aware Intention Recognition for Autonomous Robots"

Dr. Kwamena Appiah-Kubi: (PhD, UoL, Director of Studies), 2017-2019, "Learning within Crowds: an Examination of Peer Support and Social Presence Behavious in a Massive Open Online Course"

Onis Brown: (MRes, UoL, Director of Studies), 2019-2021, ""

Dr. Francesco Del Duchetto: (PhD, UoL, 2nd supervisor), 2018-2022, ""

Dr. Huatian Wang: (PhD, UoL, 2nd supervisor), 2017-2021, ""

Dr. Emmanuel Senft: (PhD, PU, 2nd supervisor), 2014-2018, "Teaching Robots Social Autonomy From In Situ Human Supervision"

Dr. James Kennedy: (PhD, PU, 2nd supervisor), 2013-2017, "The Impact of Robot Tutor Social Behaviour on Children"

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science (Autonomous Systems) in the School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, a member of the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS), and a member of the Autism Research and Innovation Centre (ARIC).

Before arriving in Lincoln, I was a Research Fellow at Plymouth University (U.K.). My research at Plymouth was conducted in the context of the EU FP7 DREAM project, which sought to develop supervised-autonomy robot-enhanced therapy for autistic children, in which my focus was on the cognitive and behavioural aspects of the robot. Prior to this (and also at Plymouth University), I worked on the EU FP7 ALIZ-E project (coordinated by Prof. Tony Belpaeme), in which I focused on the development and application of a distributed memory system for social human-robot interaction. This work in human-robot interaction frequently took me into local schools to try out my ideas with children in environments familiar to them, outside of the lab - a mode of research that I continue to emphasise.

Prior to arriving in Plymouth as a Post-doc I completed by PhD at the University of Reading (U.K.) under the supervision of Dr. Will Browne. In the field of developmental cognitive robotics, I formulated a model of a memory-based system that developed through interaction with the environment, which I evaluated on small mobile robots. I obtained my undergraduate degree (MEng Electronic Engineering) from the University of Nottingham (U.K.).


  THEME: Learning From Humans

Learning From Humans By learning "from" humans, I mean here in the general sense of learning from the general characteristics, competencies, and mechanisms of people. Not of any particular individual, but of human beings as the prime example we have of `intelligent' (or cognitive), adaptive, and flexible behaviour. For example, it is known that human gaze is used for many social functions besides supporting the ability to see the environment - how can this be applied to robotics to improve their social interactivity, and to what extent can this be achieved? How do people recognise the intentions of others, and how do they use this to inform their own behaviour? How is it that we as humans are capable of such complex integration of information over time to enable flexible directed behaviour that is appropriate to the content, and over multiple time-scales? It is these questions, and many more, that are the focus of this theme of my research. To do this, I seek to learn from psychology and cognitive and develomental sciences (and indeed on occasion attempt to feed something useful back) in order to improve the `usefulness' of robotic autonomous systems.

  THEME: Learning With Humans

Learning With Humans The flexibility and appropriateness of human behaviour, in a huge range of social and non-social contexts, is an ability that current autonomous systems can only dream of. One key component of this ability, and one that virtually all autonomous systems attempt to make use of, is learning. When dealing with robots that are intended to interact with people (the entire field of Human-Robot-Interaction!), then why not try to learn from the humans that are currently present, be they partners, supervisors, bystanders, etc? Learning from individual people in this way, in real-time, from knowledgable/expert but perhaps inconsistent humans is an important source of information for robots. It is however a difficult challenge, especially with people who may not be experts with robotics, but who are nevertheless experts in the domains/environments that our robots are trying to assist them in. There are a range of principles and techniques that I try to incorporate here, including learning with humans-in-the-loop, adaptive robot social behaviours, and robotic cognitive memory (a topic of particular and special interest to me).

  THEME: Long-Term Social Human-Robot Interaction

Long-Term Social Human-Robot InteractionTwo important aspects of this work: (1) believable any-depth interaction, which means (for example) that the robot system is robust to low quality sensory information, and resulting uncertain knowledge of human/environment state, and can nevertheless maintain an engaging interaction (this is a very difficult problem, requiring the integration of the two themes above!), and (2) a strong commitment to testing and evaluation of systems 'in the wild', i.e. in settings that are typical for the people we are trying to help, and not for ourselves as roboticists, with my work involving schools, hospitals, museums, etc (which can be extremely difficult practically, methodologically, and ethically).


top

Publications



Publications are one of the main outputs of academic research (one of the means by which we are typically assessed, both in terms of our employing institutions, and by our research communities). Research publications are not always the most public-friendly, but I would contend that most 'good' publications should be readable by as wide an audience as possible.

For an up-to-date look at citations and metrics on my publication record, please take a look at my Google Scholar Profile. The metrics are far from perfect (not handling self-citations very well in my view, for example), but they provide somewhat of an overview of my research publication activity and (to a much lesser extent) influence.

Default view is to group by year; to group by Journal (article) and Conference (inproceedings) papers, sort by "Type".


top

Teaching



Links and other resources may be placed here where relevant. The first place to check for information on any taught module though is Blackboard.

  Meetings

For current students who would like to arrange a meeting with me (personal tutees, UGT/PGT project students, SoCS PGR students, and/or students taking the modules in which I am a member of the delivery team), please select a meeting time using my meeting booking system: found here.

If any of these times are not suitable, then please just contact me by email or on MS Teams, and we can arrange another time if possible. Happy to meet either face-to-face or on MS Teams depending on your preference.

  Resources

Over the years, I have developed a range of guidance and supporting documents in relation to various of my teaching activities. Some of these are gathered below, in case they may be of some use to any current students (or indeed anyone else).

  • To be added...

  Modules

Please see drop-downs below for the modules I am (and have previously been) involved in:

Modules:

Applied Programming Paradigms (CMP2801M)

  • Level 2, semester A
  • Co-delivered with Lei Zhang

User Experience Design (CMP2805M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Research Methods (CMP9139M)

  • All MSc taught programmes (in SoCS), semester B
  • Co-delivered with Alexandr Klimchik

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to UGT Final Year Projects and PGT Research Projects):

Advanced Programming (CMP2801M)

User Experience Design (CMP2805M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Research Methods (CMP9139M)

  • All MSc taught programmes (in SoCS)

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to UGT Final Year Projects and PGT Research Projects):

Advanced Programming (CMP2801M)

User Experience Design (CMP2805M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Research Methods (CMP9139M)

  • All MSc taught programmes (in SoCS), semester C (two-week delivery)
  • Co-delivered with Prof Luc Bidaut

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to Final Year Project):

Advanced Programming (CMP2801M)

User Experience Design (CMP2805M)

Autonomous Mobile Robotics (CMP3103M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to Final Year Project and Group Project supervisions):

User Experience Design (CMP2805M)

Autonomous Mobile Robotics (CMP3103M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to Final Year Project and Group Project supervisions):

Human-Computer Interaction (CMP2019M)

Object-Oriented Programming (CMP2090M)

Autonomous Mobile Robotics (CMP3103M)

Advanced Robotics (CMP9764M)

Frontiers of Robotics Research (CMP9766M)

Modules (in addition to Final Year Project and Group Project supervisions):

Human-Computer Interaction (CMP2019M)

Object-Oriented Programming (CMP2090M)

Autonomous Mobile Robotics (CMP3103M)

Modules (in addition to Final Year Project and Group Project supervisions):

Human-Computer Interaction (CMP2019M)

Object-Oriented Programming (CMP2090M)

Autonomous Mobile Robotics (CMP3103M)


top

Contact



  Location and Contact

University of Lincoln Campus Map School of Computer Science,
College of Science,
Brayford Pool Campus,
University of Lincoln (U.K.)

Office: INB 3113
Email: pbaxter ~at~ lincoln.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1522 83 7962

Available on MS Teams to those at the University of Lincoln.
If you are a current student, please select a meeting time using my meeting booking system.

  Links

top

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention"

-- Oscar Wilde