UKRI AI CDT in Dependable and Deployable AI for Robotics (CDT-D2AIR)

Ghofran Al Nabelsi

Project
Emotion-Aware Social Robots for Mediating Loneliness and Wellbeing

Summary
My research explores how emotion-aware social robots can support emotional wellbeing in the context of loneliness, especially by mediating connection between people rather than replacing human relationships. Building on cognitive–affective architectures, I want to investigate how robots should internally represent, appraise, and regulate emotions so they can sensitively interpret users’ affective states and choose socially appropriate actions over time. I focus in particular on robots that act as bridges for human–human interaction, using channels such as affective touch and other social signals to foster emotional closeness across distance. My work aims to provide principled, theory-driven designs for emotion-aware robot mediators that are transparent, dependable, and aligned with the CDT-D2AIR themes of trustworthy AI for HRI and wellbeing.