Research Interests

Dr. Arsen Abdulali’s research interest is modelling haptic interaction for the metaverse, the symbiosis of the physical and virtual worlds. One of his research goals is to enable haptic interaction with a simulated world, i.e., to experience a deformation of the soft object we touch, liquid dynamics in the bottle we shake, the texture of the paper that we write on, etc. Such a virtual environment can also be applied for a wide range of education applications, e.g., medical training, simulation construction sites, and operating industrial machines and vehicles. Another research interest is human-robot collaboration, where the human operates one or multiple remote robots via implicit communication, whereas the robotic manipulation at the remote site is performed in a semi-automated fashion.

Strategic Themes

Haptic Interaction Modelling for Extended Reality (XR) and Metaverse Design

Data-driven and physics-based modeling of haptic interaction for XR and Metaverse applications. Design robotics interfaces for haptic-enabled rendering.

Human-Robot and Human-Computer Interaction

Development of intuitive soft- and hardware solutions for HCI and HRI. Interpreting human motion dynamics as an input to the system and design tactile feedback.

Robotics and Teleoperation

Design tactile and proprioceptive sensors for soft robots. Design haptic-enabled control for human-in-loop systems and teleoperation.

Research Project

Construction and maintenance of roads are tedious processes involving a considerable amount of manual work. The personnel working at the construction site usually perform difficult tasks, e.g., lifting and moving heavy loads, and are often exposed to severe weather conditions. In this project, Dr Arsen Abdulali proposes a novel approach of human-robot social cooperation, where the human operator remotely orchestrates the robot. The robot performs the manipulation routines with objects and the roadside environment in a semi-automated manner. The proposed human-in-loop design will move the roadside workers to the remote offices, which reduces the negative effects associated with health and safety.

Project Title: Human-Robot Cooperation for Maintenance and Construction of Future Roads 

Abstract:

Construction and maintenance of roads are tedious processes involving a considerable amount of manual work. The personnel working at the construction site usually perform difficult tasks, e.g., lifting and moving heavy loads, and are often exposed to severe weather conditions. In this project, we propose a novel approach of human-robot social cooperation, where the human operator remotely orchestrates the robot. The robot performs the manipulation routines with objects and the roadside environment in a semi-automated manner. The proposed human-in-loop design will move the roadside workers to the remote offices, which reduces the negative effects associated with health and safety. The applicant plans to develop the project in three steps. First, the applicant will develop the haptic-enabled simulator that allows the human operator to manipulate objects simulated in a digital twin road construction or maintenance. The proposed simulator can be later used as a training platform to teach new staff members. In the second stage, the algorithms developed for manipulation with a virtual environment will be implemented to operate a physical robot in a teleoperation setting. At this point, the main objective is to design control algorithms, as well as to develop an end-effector capable of sensing the physical contact and executing task-specific actuation. The last stage is the development of the concept of human-robot cooperation, where the operator controls the robot through abstract motion patterns(orchestration) rather than by employing direct coordination through teleoperation. The proposed project has potentially a high social and scientific impact and involves multidisciplinary and international collaboration.

The goal and objectives of the project align with and is motivated by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasizing human-centric approaches to aid in transitioning from Industry 4.0 to a more inclusive and equitable Industry 5.0. Particularly, the target SDGs are “8. Decent Work and Economic Growth”, “9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure”, “11. Sustainable Cities and Communities”, and “12. Responsible Construction and Production”. The project also makes the industry more inclusive to people physically less capable in manual labour jobs, which positively affects the “5. Gender Equality”, and “10. Reduced Inequalities” goals.

This is a research level project with a plan to grow from TRL 1 (Basic Principles Observed) to TRL 3 (Experimental Proof of Concepts) level with possible cooperation with interested industry partners.

The choice of the secondment plan will be made based on interest from the industry partners, as well as the available infrastructure and target application domain and expertise.

Biography

Arsen Abdulali received a B.S. degree in information security from Tashkent University of Information Technologies, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2014. He completed his Ph.D. degree with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea. During his Ph.D., he developed a unified framework that enables haptic interaction with virtual objects. The framework considers both surface properties by modeling vibrotactile feedback induced by the haptic texture, as well as material properties that we experience through the deformation of an object. In 2021, he joined the Bio-inspired Robotics Lab. in the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge as a research associate. His research was funded by the Self-Healing Soft Robotics (SHERO) project of the EU Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) program and the focus were on damage detection and localization of soft self-healing robots by using machine and deep-learning techniques. In 2022, Arsen was awarded a three-year fellowship by a Future Roads program funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant. His work was well accepted and recognized in the Virtual Reality community. For example, one research article received the best full paper award at the prestigious VR conference, VRST 2019, and got invited for a poster presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2019. In this research, the applicant characterized elastic and plastic materials for real-time haptic-enabled FEM simulation. Likewise, the applicant has been actively working on data-driven modeling, where his paper on modeling surface textures won the best honorable mention at EuroHaptics 2016 and has been deployed to numerous applications, e.g., modeling road surfaces for VR bicycles.