With power comes responsibility: as robots become more advanced and prevalent, the role they will play in human society becomes increasingly important. Given that violence is an important problem, the question emerges if robots could defend people, even if doing so might cause harm to someone. The current study explores the broad context of how people perceive the acceptability of such robot self-defense (RSD) in terms of (1) theory, via a rapid scoping review, and (2) public opinion in two countries. As a result, we summarize and discuss: increasing usage of robots capable of wielding force by law enforcement and military, negativity toward robots, ethics and legal questions (including differences to the well-known trolley problem), control in the presence of potential failures, and practical capabilities that such robots might require. Furthermore, a survey was conducted, indicating that participants accepted the idea of RSD, with some cultural differences. We believe that, while substantial obstacles will need to be overcome to realize RSD, society stands to gain from exploring its possibilities over the longer term, toward supporting human well-being in difficult times. © 2023 by the authors.

This paper delves into the utilization of Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) in emergency vehicle warning systems in the era of 6G. The proposed system, named SafeSmart 6G, will leverage VANET-based vehicle-to-infrastructure Communication powered by 6G to exchange data between traffic lights and emergency vehicles, enhancing safety and reducing response times. SafeSmart 6G will predict the arrival time of emergency vehicles at intersections using historical data and AI-driven analytics, requesting signal preemption for the chosen route. The paper discusses the potential benefits and challenges that might arise from the use of 6G in emergency scenarios. © 2023 IEEE.

This paper discusses the use of Vehicular Adhoc Networks (VANETs) for traffic light preemption in emergency scenarios. The proposed system, called SafeSmart, utilizes VANET-based vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to exchange data between traffic lights and emergency vehicles, improving safety and saving time. SafeSmart attempts to predict the arrival time of emergency vehicles at intersections using historical data and requests signal preemption for the selected route. This paper describes and evaluates the proposed approach through simulations using state-of-the-art simulators SUMO and OMNeT++ and real-world traffic data (Luxembourg SUMO Traffic (LuST) Scenario). The results demonstrate improved trip times and increased safety for emergency vehicles and general public on the road. © 2023 IEEE.

Motivated by the expectation that robot presence at crime scenes will become increasingly prevalent, the question arises of how they can protect humans in their care or vicinity. The current paper delves into the concept of 'robot self-defense' and explores whether a robot should be tele-operated or autonomous, and how humans perceive imperfections in robot performance. To gain insight into how people feel, an online survey was conducted with 180 participants, who watched six videos of a robot defending a victim. The study provides insights into trust in human-robot interactions and sheds light on the complex dynamics involved in robot self-defense. The results indicate that people found a tele-operated robot to be more accepted, and that attempting to help but failing is more acceptable than just observing. © 2023 IEEE.

Would it be okay for a robot to hurt a human, if by doing so it could protect someone else? Such ethical questions could be vital to consider, as the market for social robots grows larger and robots become increasingly prevalent in our surroundings. Here we introduce the topic of “robot self-defense”, which involves the use of force by a robot in response to violence, to protect a human in its care. To explore this topic, we conducted a preliminary analysis of the literature, as well as brainstorming sessions, which led us to formulate an idea about how people will perceive robot self-defense based on the perceived risk of loss. Additionally, we propose a study design to investigate how the general public will perceive the acceptability of a robot using self- defense techniques. As part of this, we describe some hypotheses based on the assumption that the perceived acceptability will be affected by both the entities involved in a violent situation and the amount of force that is applied. The proposed scenarios will be used in a future survey to evaluate participants’ perception of a social robot using self-defense techniques under varying circumstances, toward stimulating ideation and discussion on how robots will be able to help people to live better lives. © 2022 IEEE.

Could a social robot use force to prevent violence directed toward humans in its care?-Might crime be eradicated, or conversely could excessive use of force proliferate and human dignity become trampled beneath cold robotic wheels? Such speculation is one part of a larger, increasingly important question of how social robots will be expected to behave in our societies, as robotic technologies develop and become increasingly widespread. Here, to gain some insight into this topic of "robot self-defense", we proposed a simplified heuristic based on perceived risk of loss to predict acceptability, and conducted a user survey with 304 participants, who watched eight animated videos of robots and humans in a violent altercation. The results indicated that people largely accept the idea that a humanoid robot can use force on attackers to help others. Furthermore, self-defense was perceived as more acceptable when the appearance of the defender was humanoid rather than mechanical, and when the force disparity between attacker and defender was high. The immediate suggestion is that it could be beneficial to re-examine common assumptions that a robot should never harm or risk harming humans, and to discuss and consider the possibilities for robot self-defense. © 2022 IEEE.

Smart Cities have been around as a concept for quite some time. However, most examples of Smart Cities (SCs) originate from megacities (MCs), despite the fact that most people live in Small and Medium-sized Cities (SMCs). This paper addresses the contextual setting for smart cities from the perspective of such small and medium-sized cities. It starts with an overview of the current trends in the research and development of SCs, highlighting the current bias and the challenges it brings. We follow with a few concrete examples of projects which introduced some form of “smartness” in the small and medium cities context, explaining what influence said context had and what specific effects did it lead to. Building on those experiences, we summarise the current understanding of Smart Cities, with a focus on its multi-faceted (e.g., smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living) nature; we describe mainstream publications and highlight the bias towards large and very large cities (sometimes even subconscious); give examples of (often implicit) assumptions deriving from this bias; finally, we define the need of contextualising SCs also for small and medium-sized cities. The aim of this paper is to establish and strengthen the discourse on the need for SMCs perspective in Smart Cities literature. We hope to provide an initial formulation of the problem, mainly focusing on the unique needs and the specific requirements. We expect that the three example cases describing the effects of applying new solutions and studying SC on small and medium-sized cities, together with the lessons learnt from these experiences, will encourage more research to consider SMCs perspective. To this end, the current paper aims to justify the need for this under-studied perspective, as well as to propose interesting challenges faced by SMCs that can serve as initial directions of such research.

An important use case for Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) is its application in the warning systems of emergency vehicles (EV). VANET-based vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication can be used to exchange important data and information between traffic lights and EVs, by means of transceivers at both ends. This communication helps in reducing the risks of accidents and also saves valuable time through an optimized orchestration of the traffic lights. This paper outlines the system design of an EV warning system that makes use of V2I communication. The system has been extensively studied in state-of-the-art simulators, such as SUMO and OMNeT++, in a huge variety of scenarios, where metrics for both time and safety have been collected. The results show that SafeSmart is highly effective in reducing trip times as well as increasing the overall safety of EVs in emergency scenarios. © 2013 IEEE.