At the traffic playground at the elementary school in Bratislava’s Karlova ves, researchers from FIIT STU, KIT Karlsruhe and Halmstad University, in cooperation with the Bratislava City Police, tested how children react to a humanoid robot that is supposed to ensure the safe crossing of children across the road in front of the school.
PRESS RELEASE
Bratislava, 19.6.2025
Automated vehicles are already a daily reality to some extent today, and we are gradually approaching the point where cars can handle all maneuvers independently, without the assistance of a human driver. This is where humanoid robots come to the rescue, as they have enormous potential to connect the world of people and the world of machines – they can communicate with pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in a natural way for them, with gestures, words, natural language. At the same time, they can communicate with automated and fully automated vehicles using standard wireless communication technologies. The advantage of a humanoid robot is of course that the robot can constantly monitor the entire 360-degrees of its surroundings and never loses focus on its tasks.
“However, the key question is how people across different age groups will react to the presence of such humanoid robots on the roads. This is exactly the aspect we tested today with colleagues from KIT Karlsruhe in Germany, the University of Halmstad in Sweden and the University of Liechtenstein,” explains Nina Masaryková, a doctoral student from FIIT STU, explaining the details of Thursday’s activity.
The testing itself on the traffic playground was provided by the Bratislava City Police in cooperation with the Karloveská 61 Elementary School.
The result of the event is the collected feedback from students from different grades regarding their interaction with the robot, as well as the recorded amount of sensory and telemetric data, which will be further processed as part of ongoing research activities.
The day before the actual testing of the robot, a memorandum was signed at FIIT STU between the faculty and the Bratislava City Police, in which the parties declared a common interest in developing research and popularization activities in the field of increasing the safety of road users using intelligent solutions, such as early warning systems, automated traffic management, and various applications of artificial intelligence and advanced technologies to reduce the risk of traffic accidents. The memorandum was signed on behalf of the Faculty of Informatics by the Dean of FIIT STU, Prof. Ivan Kotuliak, and on behalf of the Bratislava City Police by its Chief, Miroslav Antal.
“At FIIT STU, we perceive our responsibility not only in education and research, but also in the transfer of innovations into practice. Thursday’s testing of a humanoid robot in urban traffic – although for now in a simulated traffic playground environment – represents a step towards safer, technologically supported mobility of the future. Robots have the potential to significantly increase the safety of vulnerable road users. However, how people accept them is equally important. This is precisely why we emphasize interdisciplinary research that connects artificial intelligence, robotics, user experience and social perception,” said Dean Ivan Kotuliak in connection with the signing of the memorandum and the planned event.
“We are pleased to see every new way to contribute to reducing accidents on our roads. Especially when it comes to an innovative approach that Slovak students are also working on. The safety of children, pedestrians and cyclists is one of the major priorities of the city and the city police. We believe that our help will also bring improvement in this area,” said the Chief of the Bratislava City Police, Miroslav Antal, at the signing of the memorandum.
The principal investigator of these activities is prof. Dr. Alexey Vinel, leader of Cooperative Autonomous Systems group at KIT Karlsruhe in Germany and a full professor at Halmstad University in Sweden. This research includes inputs from other academic and industrial european partners, with consortia being established aiming to important research activities within Horizon Europe framework.
“The European Union and other European institutions take very seriously the ambition within Vision Zero to completely eliminate fatal accidents on European roads by 2050. Today’s event clearly shows, among other things, that FIIT STU is a stable partner of prestigious universities across Europe and that Slovakia has great potential to engage in various forms of pilot testing of future technologies and to be a solid part of the European innovation space,” concludes Marek Galinski, head of the 5G & AIL laboratory at FIIT STU, which covers these activities in Bratislava.