Autonomous Checkers Robot; Autonomous Robot Safety

Entertainment and human enjoyment is one of the driving factors in society today, with robotic systems being incorporated into it more and more. My capstone project aims to further this development by creating an autonomous Checkers playing robot that will draw peoples attention away from harmful blue light screens and toward a dynamic single player game. This technology has the potential to promote brain stimulating activity, at the risk of reducing human interaction and safety because of the robot. The ethical and societal concerns of autonomous robot safety and human-robot interaction overall have been topics of consideration throughout my research.
To address these concerns, I searched through current technical papers that propose technologies centered around autonomous robot safety in order to formulate suggestions for new standards and regulations to be implemented as the time moves forward and more systems become autonomous. Through these case studies, I hoped to find promising algorithms and safety protocols that could be enforced in general cases, but primarily in systems where the autonomous robot has to be social. The implications of my proposed regulations include clear expectations for autonomous robots by commercial users, safer work environments for industrial users and built-in fail-safes for users of all kinds. Redesigning my team’s Checkers playing robot with these new standards would provide a safer, more enjoyable experience.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
Technical Advisor: Harry Powell
STS Advisor: Pedro Augusto Francisco
Technical Team Members: Matthew Hankins, Matthew Ippolito, Nicholas Palmer