# SoftBank Robotics documentation What's new in NAOqi 2.8?

# ALUserSession

NAOqi Core - Overview | API | Getting Started

## What it does

ALUserSession manages the state of active users.

- It is a state machine of present users with open sessions, and the one focused user who the SoftBank Robotics robot is currently tracking.
- After identification, users are defined by their UserSession IDs.
- Specific data about users can be stored or accessed using their UserSession IDs via ALUserInfo API.
- A user can be permanent on the robot or not: all permanent users will always be remembered by the robot, all non permanent users will be forgotten by the robot if they have not been seen for 10 minutes.

## How it works

When a human is present, ALAutonomousLife‘s mind detects them via ALBasicAwareness.

Then it attempts to autonomously map this perceived human to an existing user via built in rolling facial recognition.

- If this human cannot be identified as an existing user, a new user is created in ALUserSession.
- If the human could not be identified because the robot could not see the face well enough, then a special anonymous user is used, and the robot will try to identify the face again 3 seconds later.

ALUserSession sends signals to inform the Activity and other modules about the sessions and focused user changes so they can adapt themselves as necessary.

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