Jamilah Abdur-Rahim

RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Eurom (Czechia)

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Dr. Jamilah Abdur-Rahim is a pioneering researcher at the intersection of human-robot interaction and assistive mobility, with a primary focus on understanding and modeling human navigational behavior. Her key research areas include human-robot interaction, assistive robotics, and computational models of human habituation. Dr. Abdur-Rahim’s major contribution lies in introducing and formalizing the concept of *navigational habituation*—the process by which human passengers adapt to repetitive motion patterns in autonomous vehicles, particularly robotic wheelchairs. Her foundational 2014 paper, "Modeling of human velocity habituation for a robotic wheelchair" (9 citations), proposes a novel model that predicts how riders develop a preferred linear velocity over repeated trips, enabling robots to anticipate and accommodate human comfort. She extended this work in her 2017 study, "Analysis of navigational habituation" (4 citations), which demonstrates how robotic technology can serve as a tool to reverse-engineer human behavior, paving the way for more intuitive, human-like navigation algorithms. By bridging robotics and cognitive science, Dr. Abdur-Rahim’s research not only advances autonomous wheelchair design but also provides a framework for creating empathetic, adaptive mobility systems that enhance user trust and safety.