Glossary

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Assistive Robot(also: Personal Assistive Robot, Socially Assistive Robot, Caregiving Robot)

A robot designed to assist people with disabilities, older adults, or those with chronic conditions in performing daily activities or maintaining independence. Assistive robots may provide physical assistance (manipulation, mobility), cognitive support (reminders, step-by-step…

Assistive Robotics(also: Rehabilitation Robotics, Assistive Robots)

Robotic systems designed to assist people with disabilities in performing daily tasks, enhancing independence, and improving quality of life. Assistive robotics includes robotic arms for manipulation, autonomous cleaning devices, mobility aids, and telepresence robots. In smart…

Autonomous Navigation Robot(also: Autonomous guide robot, Self-navigating robot)

A mobile robot that plans and executes its own path through an environment to deliver a user or payload to a chosen destination, using onboard sensors (LiDAR, cameras, IMU) and a map for localisation, obstacle avoidance, and path planning. In accessibility contexts, autonomous…

Avatar Robot(also: Robot Avatar, Telepresence Avatar)

A physical robot that acts as a remote proxy for a human operator, enabling them to interact with a distant environment through vision, audio, and often manipulation or movement. Avatar robots extend the capabilities of telepresence beyond a screen on a stand, allowing the…

Care Technology(also: Care robots, Robots for care, Assistive care technology)

Technology designed to support caregiving activities in institutional or home settings, including robotic systems, monitoring devices, and digital tools that assist care workers and care recipients. Care technology encompasses a broad range of applications from documentation…

Closed-Loop Control(also: Feedback Control)

A control strategy in which a system continuously measures the current state, compares it to a desired reference, and adjusts its output to minimize the error. Contrasted with open-loop control, which acts without sensing outcomes. In assistive wearables, closed-loop control is…

Collaborative Robot(also: Cobot, Co-Robot)

A robot designed to work alongside humans in shared workspaces, as opposed to traditional industrial robots that operate in isolation. Cobots are of particular interest for workplace inclusion because they can reduce physical workload, adapt to individual abilities, and create…

Collision Avoidance(also: Obstacle Avoidance, Anti-Collision System)

A safety feature in assistive technology, robotics, and intelligent wheelchairs that automatically detects obstacles in the user's path and takes action to prevent impact — typically by stopping the device, alerting the user, or redirecting movement. Collision avoidance systems…

Drone Accessibility(also: UAV Accessibility, Accessible Drone Piloting)

The design and adaptation of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and their control interfaces to be usable by people with disabilities. This includes providing alternative input methods such as voice commands, adapted controllers, and tangible interfaces, as well as multimodal…

Exoskeleton(also: Robotic Exoskeleton, Wearable Exoskeleton)

A wearable mechanical or robotic device that fits around a part of the body — typically the hand, arm, or leg — and provides powered movement assistance, resistance, or guided motion. In rehabilitation contexts, exoskeletons are used to support intensive, repetitive motor…

Freezing Robot Problem(also: Freezing robot, Robot freezing)

A classic failure mode of autonomous robots operating among people, first characterised by Trautman and Krause (2010), in which a robot stalls indefinitely because every candidate path is blocked by predicted human motion. The problem arises because overly conservative motion…

Human-Robot Interaction(also: HRI)

The interdisciplinary field studying how humans and robots communicate, collaborate, and coexist. In accessibility contexts, HRI research explores how robots can be designed to support people with disabilities in workplaces, homes, and public spaces — including collaborative…

Humanoid Robot(also: Humanoid)

A robot whose physical form approximates a human body, typically with a head, torso, two arms, and (in bipedal designs) two legs. Humanoid robots are studied in accessibility research as embodied demonstrators that can present gestures, postures, and movement sequences in ways…

Intelligent Wheelchair(also: Smart Wheelchair, Powered Wheelchair with Navigation Assistance)

A powered wheelchair augmented with sensors, computing hardware, and software algorithms to provide navigation assistance, collision avoidance, or autonomous driving capabilities. Intelligent wheelchairs range from fully autonomous systems that navigate without user input to…

Map-less Navigation(also: Mapless navigation, Infrastructure-free navigation)

A class of robotic and assistive navigation techniques that do not require a pre-built environmental map or installed infrastructure such as Bluetooth Low Energy beacons, ultra-wideband anchors, or visual fiducials. Map-less systems instead rely on on-board sensors (LiDAR, RGB-D…

Motion-Based AAC(also: Physical Expressive AAC, Expressive Sidekick)

An emerging form of augmentative and alternative communication that uses physical movement of objects or robotic devices to convey nonverbal communicative intent during conversations. Unlike traditional AAC which focuses on generating speech, motion-based AAC addresses the…

Occupancy Grid Map(also: 2D occupancy grid, Grid map)

A representation of an environment as a grid of cells, where each cell is labelled as walkable (free space), non-walkable (obstacle or wall), or unknown. Occupancy grid maps are a standard data structure in robotics and are increasingly used in blind-navigation systems built on…

Pet Robot(also: Robotic Pet, Zoomorphic Robot, Companion Pet Robot)

A socially interactive robot designed to resemble and behave like an animal companion — most famously PARO (a baby harp seal) and AIBO (a robotic dog) — used to provide emotional comfort, reduce loneliness, stimulate engagement, and support therapy for older adults, particularly…

Robotic Arm(also: Robot Arm, Assistive Robotic Arm, Manipulator Arm)

A programmable mechanical device with jointed segments that can grasp, move, and manipulate objects, controlled through various input methods. In assistive technology contexts, robotic arms are used to extend the physical capabilities of people with motor impairments, enabling…

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping(also: SLAM)

A foundational robotics technique in which a robot constructs a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously estimating its own pose within that map. SLAM combines sensor input (typically LiDAR, depth cameras, or monocular vision) with probabilistic state estimation…

Social Navigation(also: Socially-aware navigation, Socially compliant robot navigation)

In robotics, the problem of moving through an environment that contains people, in a way that respects social norms, comfort, and safety. Social navigation goes beyond obstacle avoidance: it requires predicting pedestrian intentions, respecting personal space, interpreting…

Social Robot(also: Companion Robot, Assistive Social Robot)

A robot designed to interact with people in socially meaningful ways, using verbal communication, gestures, and responsive behaviors to engage users. In accessibility contexts, social robots like SoftBank's Pepper have shown potential as confidence-building mentors, health…

Social robot(also: Socially assistive robot, Companion robot)

A robot designed to interact and communicate with people in socially meaningful ways, often through movement, sound, or simulated emotional expression. In accessibility contexts, social robots are used to support neurodivergent individuals, older adults, and people with…

Socially Assistive Robot(also: SAR, Social Robot)

A robot designed to assist people through social interaction rather than physical manipulation. Socially assistive robots use embodied presence, movement, and social behaviors such as gaze, gestures, and expressions to provide support in contexts including therapy, education,…

Swarm robotics(also: Multi-robot systems)

A field of robotics involving the coordination of multiple simple robots that work together as a group, inspired by collective behaviours in nature such as ant colonies or bird flocking. Individual robots follow simple rules, but their collective behaviour produces complex,…

Telepresence Robot(also: Telepresence Device, Remote Presence Robot)

A remotely controlled robot equipped with a mobile base, camera, microphone, and speaker that enables a user to navigate, observe, and interact with people and environments from a distance. Telepresence robots extend the concept of video conferencing by adding mobility and…

Telepresence robot(also: Telepresence, Remote presence robot)

A mobile robotic device that enables a remote user to have a physical presence in a distant location, typically featuring a screen displaying the user's face, a camera, microphone, speaker, and wheels for navigation. In educational and workplace accessibility contexts,…

Uncanny valley

A concept in robotics and animation describing the discomfort people feel when a humanoid figure looks almost, but not quite, realistic. As robots or avatars approach human likeness, they can provoke feelings of eeriness or revulsion before reaching full realism. In…

Vision-and-Language Navigation(also: VLN)

Vision-and-language navigation is a task setup in which an agent follows natural-language instructions to move through a visual environment, grounding words like 'turn left at the blue sofa' onto what it sees in real time. Research in VLN has moved from small indoor simulators…

29 results.