Fillia Makedon, a Distinguished Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has been awarded two new National Science Foundation (NSF) grants involving human-computer interaction. In one, she will study extended reality to assess attention levels in people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD); in the other, she will look at how human-robot interaction could help visually impaired persons perform job duties remotely from home using telerobotic technologies.
The NSF awarded Dr. Makedon $440,758 through its Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research program, which supports work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative research ideas or approaches.
Makedon is teaming up with Dr. Nick Gans, Head of the Autonomation and Intelligent Systems Division at the UTA Research Institute, and Austin Lighthouse, a warehouse that employs and trains visually impaired and blind people. Together, they will explore the potential for people who are visually impaired to use telerobots to carry out physical tasks remotely. (With the telerobots, the human operator can receive sensor feedback and is in control of navigation and control.) Access full article here.