Medics and Machines: Developing Robotic Technologies to Provide Assured Care in the Field

Researchers at Johns Hopkins APL are exploring how emerging capabilities in artificial intelligence, augmented reality and robotics might support collaborative intervention by teams of medics, AI-based virtual assistants and autonomous robots. 🤖 jhuapl.link/dhj
“What if we could teach robots the way we teach people - through written instructions, verbal instructions, gestures and by example?” said David Handelman, a senior roboticist in APL’s Research and Exploratory Development Department (REDD).
The medic-robot teaming effort leverages ongoing research at APL sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory and the Army’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation Institute on adaptive human-robot teaming. This research combines symbolic AI and neuro-inspired machine learning to emulate human skill acquisition to achieve adjustable autonomy (dynamically adjusting whether humans or robots act, and when) and adaptive teaming (handling new situations).
The researchers want to develop a system where humans provide the outline of a task - behavioral scaffolding based on known good strategies - and allow robots to learn how to perform subtasks to minimize human workload and expand the range of potential solutions.