Alle Publikationen
2020
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(2020): The Secret Life of Robots: Perspectives and Challenges for Robot’s Behaviours During Non-interactive Tasks. In: International Journal of Social Robotics, S. 1265-1278. DOI: 10.1007/s12369-020-00650-z
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-020-00650-z Abstract: Some applications of service robots within domestic and working environments are envisaged to be a significant part of our lives in the not too distant future. They are developed to autonomously accomplish different tasks either on behalf of or in collaboration with a human being. Robots can perceive and interpret data from the external environment, so they also collect personal information and habits; they can plan, navigate, and manipulate objects, eventually intruding in our personal space and disturbing us in the current activities. Indeed, such capabilities need to be socially enhanced to ensure their effective deployment and to favour a significant social impact. The modelling and evaluation of a service robot’s behaviour, while not interacting with a human, have only been marginally considered in the last few years. But these can be expected to play a key role in developing socially acceptable robotic applications that can be used widely. To explore this research direction, we present research objectives related to the effective development of socially-aware service robots that are not involved in tasks that require explicit interaction with a person. Such discussion aims at highlighting some of the future challenges that will be posed for the social robotics community in the next years.
2019
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(2019) : An Exploratory Study on Proxemics Preferences of Humans in Accordance with Attributes of Service Robots: 2019 28th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): 2019 28th IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): New Delhi, India: IEEE, S. 1-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/RO-MAN46459.2019.8956297 Abstract: Service robots that possess social interactive capabilities are vital to cater to the demand in emerging domains of robotic applications. A service robot frequently needs to interact with users when performing service tasks. The comfortability of users depends on the human-robot proxemics during these interactions. Hence, a service robot should be capable of maintaining proper proxemics that improves the comfort of users. The proxemics preferences of users might depend on diverse attributes of a robot, such as emotional state, noise level, and physical appearance. Therefore, it is vital to gain a better understanding of a robot's attributes which influence human-robot proxemics behavior. This paper contributes to an exploratory study to analyze the effects on human-robot proxemics preferences due to a robot's attributes; facial and vocal emotions, level of internal noises, and the physical appearance. Four sub-studies have been conducted to gather the required human-robot proxemics data. The gathered data have been analyzed through statistical tests. The test statistics reveal that facial and vocal emotions, internal noise level, and the physical appearance of a robot have significant effects on proxemics preferences of humans. The outcomes of this exploratory study would be useful in designing and developing human-robot proxemics strategies of a service robot that would enhance social interaction.
Keywords: emotion & social robotics, Human Factors, human-robot interaction, human-robot proxemics behavior, human-robot proxemics data, human-robot proxemics preferences, human-robot proxemics strategies, ieee xplore, Proxemics, robotic applications, service robot, service robotic, Social robotic, statistical testing, statistical tests -
(2019) : Social Robots in Therapy and Care: 2019 14th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Daegu, Korea: IEEE, S. 669-670
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI.2019.8673243 Abstract: The Social Robots in Therapy workshop series aims at advancing research topics related to the use of robots in the contexts of Social Care and Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT). Robots in social care and therapy have been a long time promise in HRI as they have the opportunity to improve patients life significantly. Multiple challenges have to be addressed for this, such as building platforms that work in proximity with patients, therapists and health-care professionals; understanding user needs; developing adaptive and autonomous robot interactions; and addressing ethical questions regarding the use of robots with a vulnerable population. The full-day workshop follows last year’s edition which centered on how social robots can improve health-care interventions, how increasing the degree of autonomy of the robots might affect therapies, and how to overcome the ethical challenges inherent to the use of robot assisted technologies. This 2nd edition of the workshop will be focused on the importance of equipping social robots with socio-emotional intelligence and the ability to perform meaningful and personalized interactions. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and industry experts in the fields of Human-Robot Interaction, Machine Learning and Robots in Health and Social Care. It will be an opportunity for all to share and discuss ideas, strategies and findings to guide the design and development of robot-assisted systems for therapy and social care implementations that can provide personalize, natural, engaging and autonomous interactions with patients (and health-care providers).
Keywords: Adaptive Behaviors, adaptive robot interactions, autonomous robot interactions, biomedical education, Conferences, ethical aspects, Health Care, health-care interventions, health-care professionals, health-care providers, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, medical robotics, Medical treatment, Mobile robots, Moral & Ethik, patient treatment, Personalized Behaviors, Radio access technologies, robot assisted technologies, Robot kinematics, robot-assisted systems, robot-assisted therapy, Robots in Therapy, service robot, social care implementations, Social intelligence, social robots, Supervised Autonomy -
(2019) : User Experience for Social Human-Robot Interactions: 2019 Amity International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AICAI): Dubai, United Arab Emirates: IEEE, S. 32-36
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/AICAI.2019.8701332 Abstract: A significant threat social robots often faces is that their integration in real social, human environments will dehumanise some of the roles currently being played by the humans. This perception implicitly overestimates the social skills of the robots, which despite being continually upgraded, are still far from being able to dominate humans entirely. It also reflects loosely fears that robots may overcome humans in the near future and impact on the need to employ humans. This paper aims to address the role and relevance of user experience of socially interactive robots, separating several issues related to the evaluation of social human-robot interaction and then more specifically how this should be considered in developing countries where socially interactive robots are viewed with resistance and apprehension.
Keywords: Developing Countries, human environments, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Künstliche Intelligenz, Mobile robots, Robot sensing systems, service robot, Social Environments, social human-robot interaction, social robots, Social Skills, socially interactive robots, User acceptance, user experience 2018
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(2018): Ethics for Robots as Experimental Technologies: Pairing Anticipation with Exploration to Evaluate the Social Impact of Robotics. In: IEEE Robotics Automation Magazine 25 (1), S. 30-36. DOI: 10.1109/MRA.2017.2781543
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/MRA.2017.2781543 Abstract: The evaluation of the societal impact of autonomous technologies, particularly robotics, has grown in technological contexts (e.g., see [14] and the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems [20]), as well as broader political contexts (e.g., see the 2017 European Parliament report regarding civil law rules on robotics [21]). In this article, we adopt the perspective that conceptualizes new technologies as social experiments, stressing their experimental character to deal with the inherent uncertainty that affects their behavior. We suggest that the kind of experiments performed when evaluating robots in specific contexts of use are explorative experiments, i.e., investigations carried out in the absence of a proper theory or theoretical background that diverge from the traditional notion of controlled experiments. Considering this epistemological shift, we apply the ethical framework proposed by van de Poel for experimental technologies to the case of robotics, and we discuss its implications on the design of robots. To make our discussion more concrete, we reference the field of robots for search and rescue, which offers a challenging opportunity to test socioethical approaches to the development of robots and their interactions with environments and humans.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, autonomous technologies, ethical aspects, Ethics, experimental technologies, ieee xplore, Künstliche Intelligenz, Law, Monitoring, Politics, Robotics, Robots, service robot, social aspects of automation, Social implications of technology, technological contexts -
(2018): Toward Socially Aware Person-Following Robots. In: IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems 10 (4), S. 936-954. DOI: 10.1109/TCDS.2018.2825641
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/TCDS.2018.2825641 Abstract: Significant research and development has been invested in technical issues related to person following. However, a systematic approach for designing robotic person-following behavior that maintains appropriate social conventions across contexts has not yet been developed. To understand why this may be the case, an in-depth literature review of 221 articles on person-following robots was performed, from which 107 are referenced. From these papers, six relevant topics were identified that shed light on the types of social interactions that have been studied in person-following scenarios: 1) applications; 2) robotic systems; 3) environments; 4) following strategies; 5) human-robot communication; and 6) evaluation methods. Gaps in the existing research on person-following robots were identified, mainly in addressing social interaction and user needs, noting that only 25 articles reported proper user studies. Human-related, robot-related, task-related, and environment-related factors that are likely to influence people’s spatial preferences and expectations of a robot’s person-following behavior are then discussed. To guide the design of socially aware person following robots, a user-needs layered design framework that combines the four factor categories is proposed. The framework provides a systematic way to incorporate social considerations in the design of person-following robots. Finally, framework limitations and future challenges in the field are presented and discussed.
Keywords: Accompanying robot, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), environment-related factors, human-related factors, human-robot interaction, Human–robot interaction (HRI), ieee xplore, Legged locomotion, Mobile robots, Navigation, person-following, Proxemics, Robot sensing systems, robotic person-following behavior, robot-related factors, service robot, social interaction, Social interactions, Social robotic, social sciences, socially aware person-following robots, Task Analysis, task-related factors, user needs -
(2018) : Artificial Empathy in Social Robots: An analysis of Emotions in Speech: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Nanjing, China: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 632-637
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525652 Abstract: Artificial speech developed using speech synthesizers has been used as the voice for robots in Human Robot Interaction (HRI). As humans anthropomorphize robots, an empathetically interacting robot is expected to increase the level of acceptance of social robots. Here, a human perception experiment evaluates whether human subjects perceive empathy in robot speech. For this experiment, empathy is expressed only by adding appropriate emotions to the words in speech. Also, humans’ preferences for a robot interacting with empathetic speech versus a standard robotic voice are also assessed. The results show that humans are able to perceive empathy and emotions in robot speech, and prefer it over the standard robotic voice. It is important for the emotions in empathetic speech to be consistent with the language content of what is being said, and with the human users’ emotional state. Analyzing emotions in empathetic speech using valence-arousal model has revealed the importance of secondary emotions in developing empathetically speaking social robots.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Anthropomorphism, appropriate emotions, artificial empathy, artificial speech, control engineering computing, emotion recognition, empathetic speech, empathetically interacting robot, human perception experiment, Human robot interaction, human subjects, human users, human-robot interaction, Humans, ieee xplore, Medical services, robot interacting, Robot sensing systems, robot speech, Robots, service robot, social robots, speech synthesis, speech synthesizers, standard robotic voice, standards, Task Analysis -
(2018) : Readiness for Artificial Intelligence: 2018 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Intelligent Systems and Informatics (SISY): Subotica, Serbia: IEEE, S. 000235-000238
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/SISY.2018.8524740 Abstract: In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, where collaborative systems are the real innovation people are still not prepared for the results of the third revolution, namely for artificial intelligence. While every change has its life cycle with innovators, early adopters, early majority before it can reach its fruition, the age of robots has too fast been followed by the internet of things (IoT) of the fourth industrial revolution. Hence, people didn’t have enough time to adapt to the change. In present paper a primary research is presented, that aimed to explore the attitude of young adolescents towards artificial intelligence. Based on the result, trust is clearly one of the main issues regarding change in general and readiness in particular. People are not ready for robotic peers within their workplace yet. Psychological and emotive needs shall be addressed for the people to accept artificial intelligence in their workplace and surrounding.
Keywords: AI, Artificial intelligence, change, collaborative systems, early adopters, Employment, fourth industrial revolution, groupware, ieee xplore, innovation people, Internet of things, Künstliche Intelligenz, ORGANIZATIONS, PSYCHOLOGY, readiness, robotic peers, service robot, technological innovation, Trust -
(2018) : A Wizard of Oz Study of Human Interest Towards Robot Initiated Human-Robot Interaction: 2018 27th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Nanjing, China: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 515-521
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2018.8525583 Abstract: Service robots have become a widely used tool in human-friendly assistive tasks in many aspects including social environments. Maintaining a sustainable interaction with humans is essential in performing assistive tasks in this regard. Therefore, a robot must be equipped with intelligent cognitive skills in decision making as well as in making friendly relationships with its human user. Human-like capabilities such as initiating a conversation at the right moment without distracting and maintaining an appropriate interaction are important cues in this context. This paper presents a human study conducted by means of a wizard-of-oz (WoZ) experiment to identify the behavioral features in humans that can be utilized by an assistive robot in a domestic environment to assess the situation prior to an interaction. Both verbal and nonverbal responses of participants towards an interaction initiated by a robot were recorded and analyzed to identify human behavioral changes that portray an interest towards interaction. The experiment was conducted in a simulated domestic environment and findings of the experiment are presented and discussed so that these findings could be made use of when designing human-like social robots in future. Furthermore, human behavioral changes observed during the study are analyzed and critical observations are highlighted.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), assistive robot, Attitude control, Cognition, Decision Making, Emotional Intelligence, human behavioral changes, Human Factors, human interest, Human robot interaction, human user, human-friendly assistive tasks, human-like social robots, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, intelligent cognitive skills, interaction initiation, robot initiated human-robot interaction, service robot, Social Environments, Social intelligence, Task Analysis, Tools, wizard of oz, wizard-of-oz experiment, WoZ experiment 2017
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(2017) : Fourth Industrial Revolution and the future of Engineering: Could Robots Replace Human Jobs? How Ethical Recommendations can Help Engineers Rule on Artificial Intelligence: 2017 7th World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF): Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: IEEE, S. 21-26
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/WEEF.2017.8466973 Abstract: The current economic crisis, combined with the sudden increased use of Information Technology (IT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in human life presents new challenges and opportunities for engineering education and jobs. Engineering education needs to undergo a revolution; ethical issues that involve AI and the use of technologies need to be inserted in the learning process urgently to guarantee the employment of our future engineers. In this work we identified and evaluated issues and candidate recommendations from initiatives like “The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems” and “USA NSTC’s Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence” in order to provide a set of ethical principles and recommendations that are conversant with Engineering ethics defined by “Engineering Criteria 2000”. Some of these ethical principles and recommendations are highlighted with the objective of introducing AI in engineering education and improve the connections between technology and society.
Keywords: AI, Artificial intelligence, candidate recommendations, Companies, control engineering education, economic crisis, Engineering Criteria 2000, engineering education, Engineering ethics, ethical aspects, ethical considerations, ethical issues, ethical principles, ethical recommendations, fourth industrial revolution, human life, ieee xplore, Industries, Industry 4.0, Information technology, intelligent robots, Labor Market, Law, learning (artificial intelligence), Moral & Ethik, service robot -
(2017) : Socially-aware navigation planner using models of human-human interaction: 2017 26th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN): Lisbon, Portugal: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 405-410
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2017.8172334 Abstract: In this paper, we revisit a real-time socially-aware navigation planner which helps a mobile robot to navigate alongside humans in a socially acceptable manner. This navigation planner is a modification of nav core package of Robot Operating System (ROS), based upon earlier work and further modified to use only egocentric sensors. The planner can be utilized to provide safe as well as socially appropriate robot navigation. Primitive features including interpersonal distance between the robot and an interaction partner and features of the environment (such as hallways detected in real-time) are used to reason about the current state of an interaction. Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) are trained over these features from human-human interaction demonstrations of various interaction scenarios. This model is both used to discriminate different human actions related to their navigation behavior and to help in the trajectory selection process to provide a social-appropriateness score for a potential trajectory. This paper presents an evaluation done in simulation while utilizing data from real human interactions.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), egocentric sensors, Feature extraction, Gaussian Mixture Models, Gaussian processes, human actions, human interactions, human-human interaction demonstrations, human-robot interaction, Humans, ieee xplore, interaction partner, interaction scenarios, mixture models, mobile robot, Mobile robots, nav core package, Navigation, navigation behavior, path planning, primitive features, Real-time systems, Robot Operating System, Robot sensing systems, service robot, social-appropriateness score, socially acceptable manner, socially appropriate robot navigation, socially-aware navigation planner, Trajectory -
(2017) : An intervening ethical governor for a robot mediator in patient-caregiver relationship: Implementation and evaluation: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): Marina Bay Sands, Singapore: IEEE Robotics & Automation Society, S. 2936-2942
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2017.7989340 Abstract: A robot mediator can enhance the quality of patient care in a health care context. Patients with Parkinson’s disease can experience difficulties in precisely expressing their emotions due to the loss of control of their facial musculature, leading to their stigmatization by caregivers. To remedy this challenge, a robot mediator can be inserted into a patient-caregiver relationship. In this context, it is essential to handle the ethical issues of neglect to ensure human dignity. In an earlier paper [19], we proposed an intervening ethical governor (IEG) model, which enables a robot to ethically intervene in a situation where patients or caregivers go across accepted ethical boundaries. In this paper, we show how the IEG model can be implemented and applied in a real robotics system. In addition, by conducting interviews with the target population (adults 60 years of age or older), we evaluate the current intervention rules in the model, discuss potential improvements to the model, and consider uses of the model in real clinical contexts.
Keywords: Diseases, ethical aspects, ethical boundaries, ethical governor, facial musculature, Health Care, health care context, human dignity, ieee xplore, IEG model, intervening ethical governor model, Interviews, medical robotics, Medical services, Monitoring, Moral & Ethik, Parkinson disease, Patient Care, patient-caregiver relationship, real clinical contexts, real robotics system, robot mediator, Sensors, service robot, Stigmatization, Videos -
(2017) : A study on the social acceptance of a robot in a multi-human interaction using an F-formation based motion model: 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS): Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: IEEE, S. 2766-2771
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/IROS.2017.8206105 Abstract: As robots participate in human’s daily activities more and more frequently, mobility performance has become one of the main factors determining how robots will share an environment with humans harmoniously in the near future. Among several different kinds of mobile platforms, using omnidirectional configurations is gradually becoming a trend in the robotics community; however, few researchers have addressed the impact of omnidirectional mobility from the perspective of human-robot interaction (HRI). In this paper, we have proposed a socializing model for the robot while participating in an interaction with a group of human peers to achieve its socially optimal position. From a theoretic perspective, we first identify the most prominent features required for social acceptance of robots interacting with multiple humans, backing our arguments with relevant sociological theory. To validate our results, we have conducted experiments where human participants were invited to interact with a robot, which can be constrained to perform either holonomic or nonholonomic motions only. Then, through an observer survey, we testify the appropriateness of utilizing omnidirectional mobility and verify the promotion of social acceptance using the aforementioned features, which is a goal that both the HRI and robotics communities aim to achieve.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Collision avoidance, F-formation based motion model, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Kinematics, Legged locomotion, mobile platforms, Mobile robots, mobility performance, multihuman interaction, Navigation, omnidirectional configurations, omnidirectional mobility, robotics community, service robot, Social Acceptance, socializing model 2016
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(2016) : Who should robots adapt to within a multi-party interaction in a public space?: 2016 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Christchurch, New Zealand: IEEE Press, S. 483-484
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/HRI.2016.7451817 Abstract: Robots in public environments are challenged with socially appropriate interactions with previously unseen users: they need to offer appropriate services and shape their interaction style according to the particular individual’s needs and preferences, for example the elderly and children. In addition, interactions in public spaces are not limited to merely two parties, but often involve multi-party situations with changing numbers of participants. The research question of this work is to investigate what rules should a socially competent robot follow in order to adapt to such complex social situations in real-world scenarios.
Keywords: Analysis of Variance, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), complex social situations, Hospitals, Humanoid Robots, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Information exchange, intelligent robots, Legged locomotion, multiparty interaction, Multi-Party Interaction, public environments, public spaces, real-world scenarios, Robot sensing systems, service robot, Social robotic, socially appropriate interactions, socially competent robot, speech, user needs, user preferences -
(2016) : Mobile robot navigation for human-robot social interaction: 2016 16th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS): Gyeongju, Korea: IEEE, S. 1298-1303
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCAS.2016.7832481 Abstract: Human social interactions are believed to be described by a mathematical model called the Social Force Model (SFM). A variety of mobile robot research has often used the SFM to generate an appropriate navigation behavior. However, to create a mobile robot that moves around in a human-populated environment in a socially acceptable way, it should be stressed that the social conventions are strictly obeyed. This paper proposes an extended SFM between humans and robots, called the Social Relationship Model (SRM), to enable mobile robots to generate navigation paths in a human-like manner. Simulation results show notable advantages of SRM over the Transition based Rapidly Random Tree (T-RRT) path planning algorithm. The proposed method ensures a socially acceptable robot path, one of the most important issues for human-robot symbiosis.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Collision avoidance, Force, human-populated environment, human-robot interaction, human-robot social interaction, Human-Robot Symbiosis, ieee xplore, Mathematical model, mobile robot navigation, Mobile robots, Navigation, path planning, service robot, SFM, social force model, social relationship model, SRM, Symbiosis, transition based rapidly random tree, trees (mathematics), T-RRT path planning algorithm -
(2016): Long-term assessment of a service robot in a hotel environment. In: Robotics and Autonomous Systems 79, S. 40-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.robot.2016.01.014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2016.01.014 Abstract: The long term evaluation of the Sacarino robot is presented in this paper. The study is aimed to improve the robot‘s capabilities as a bellboy in a hotel; walking alongside the guests, providing information about the city and the hotel and providing hotel-related services. The paper establishes a three-stage assessment methodology based on the continuous measurement of a set of metrics regarding navigation and interaction with guests. Sacarino has been automatically collecting information in a real hotel environment for long periods of time. The acquired information has been analyzed and used to improve the robot’s operation in the hotel through successive refinements. Some interesting considerations and useful hints for the researchers of service robots have been extracted from the analysis of the results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
2015
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(2015) : Civilized collaboration: Ethical architectures for enforcing legal requirements and mediating social norms in HRI: 2015 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS): Atlanta, Georgia, USA: IEEE
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/CTS.2015.7210394 Abstract: The ways in which we treat each other, typically underpinned by an ethical theory, serve as a foundation for civilized activity. Bounds and requirements are established for normal and acceptable interactions between humans. If we are to create robotic systems to reside among us, they must also adhere to a set of related values that humans operate under. This talk first describes the importance of such conventions in human-robot interaction, then outlines a way forward including the difficult research questions remaining to be confronted in ethical human robot interaction (HRI). In particular, examples involving architectures using ethical governors, moral emotions, responsibility advisors and theories of mind are described in two quite different contexts: warfare [1,2] and the maintenance of human dignity in healthcare [3-5]. Even the role of deception must be considered as an important adjunct to HRI, as it may yield more effective intentional and autonomous social robots if properly deployed [6-7]. Finally, we can consider how robots may eventually be able to engineer more socially just human beings via nudging and the ethical questions associated with using such devices [8].
Keywords: autonomous social robots, civilized activity, civilized collaboration, Computer architecture, Context, ethical architectures, ethical aspects, ethical governors, ethical human robot interaction, Ethical Theory, Ethics, HRI, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, legal requirements, Medical services, Moral & Ethik, Moral emotions, responsibility advisors, robotic systems, Robots, service robot, Social Norms -
(2015) : Of Robots, Humans, Bodies and Intelligence: Body Languages for Human Robot Interaction: 2015 10th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI): Portland, Oregon, USA: Association for Computing Machinery
Abstract: Modern approaches to the design of robots with increasing amounts of embodied intelligence affect human-robot interaction paradigms. The physical structure of robots is evolving from traditional rigid, heavy industrial machines into soft bodies exhibiting new levels of versatility, adaptability, safety, elasticity, dynamism and energy efficiency. New challenges and opportunities arise for the control of soft robots: for instance, carefully planning for collision avoidance may no longer be a dominating concern, being on the contrary physical interaction with the environment not only allowed, but even desirable to solve complex tasks. To address these challenges, it is often useful to look at how humans use their own bodies in similar tasks, and even in some cases have a direct dialogue between the natural and artificial counterparts. ACM Classification B.0 General.
Keywords: body languages, Body-Robot Interaction, Collision avoidance, contrary physical interaction, Dexterous Manipulation, embodied intelligence, Grasp Control, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Impedance Control, Künstliche Intelligenz, Physical Human-Robot Interaction, physical structure, safety, service robot, soft bodies, Soft robotics, soft robots, Task Analysis -
(2015) : Research ethics in human-computer interaction: A review of ethical concerns in the past five years: 2015 2nd National Foundation for Science and Technology Development Conference on Information and Computer Science (NICS): Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: IEEE, S. 180-185
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/NICS.2015.7302187 Abstract: In recent years, novel technologies have been introduced to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research community. Research contexts and the range of studies have been widen. As technology progresses, new ethical issues are posed. This paper examined and reviewed ethical issues and concerns in recent HCI research. An overview of the existing codes of conduct was also provided, in order to get clear a comprehension on the existing concerns in research protocols. The review focused on top-twenty conference series and journals in HCI, published during 2010-June 2015. The purpose was to comprehend the latest ethical issues from the premier work in HCI research community. Altogether 13 categories of ethical concerns were identified. Some of them were consistent with the existing codes, while some of the issues were specific to HCI research. There were some identified issues that should be accentuated, as they currently were not in any of the existing codes.
Keywords: Computer Ethics, Computers, ethical aspects, ethical concerns, ethical issues, Ethics, HCI, HCI research community, Human Computer Interaction, Human-computer interaction, human-computer interaction research community, ieee xplore, Moral & Ethik, privacy, PSYCHOLOGY, research ethics, Review, service robot -
(2015) : Perception of Affective Body Movements in HRI across Age Groups: Comparison between Results from Denmark and Japan: 2015 International Conference on Culture and Computing (Culture Computing): Kyoto, Japan: IEEE, S. 25-32
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/Culture.and.Computing.2015.14 Abstract: Social robots are envisioned to move into unrestricted environments where they will be interacting with naive users (in terms of their experience as robot operators). Thus, these robots are also envisioned to exploit interaction channels that are natural to humans like speech, gestures, or body movements. A specificity of these interaction channels is that humans do not only convey task-related information but also more subtle information like e.g. Emotions or personal stance through these channels. Thus, to be successful and not accidentally jeopardizing an interaction, robots need to be able to understand these implicit connotations of the signals (often called social signal processing) in order to generate appropriate signals in a given interaction context. One main application area that is envisioned for social robots is related to elder care, but little is known on how seniors will perceive robots and the signals they produce. In this paper we focus on affective connotations of body movements and investigate how the perception of body movements of robots is related to age. Inspired by a study from Japan, we introduce culture as a variable in the experiment and discuss the difficulties of cross-cultural comparisons. The results show that there are certain age-related differences in the perception of affective body movements, but not as strong as in the original study. A follow up experiment puts the affective body movements into context and shows that recognition rates deteriorate for older participants.
Keywords: affective body movement perception, affective body movements, age groups, age-related differences, Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), assisted living, Context, cross-cultural analysis, Cultural differences, culturally aware technology, Denmark, elder care, emotion information, Face, HRI, Human Factors, Human robot interaction, Humanoid Robots, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, implicit connotation, interaction channels, Japan, Legged locomotion, Observers, personal stance information, robot operators, Robots, service robot, social robots, social signal processing, task-related information, TV, unrestricted environments, Videos -
(2015): A cloud robotics approach towards dialogue-oriented robot speech. In: Advanced Robotics 29 (7), S. 449-456. DOI: 10.1080/01691864.2015.1009164
Abstract: Robot utterances generally sound monotonous, unnatural and unfriendly because their Text-to-Speech systems are not optimized for communication but for text reading. Here, we present a non-monologue speech synthesis for robots. The key novelty lies in speech synthesis based on Hidden Markov models (HMMs) using a non-monologue corpus: we collected a speech corpus in a non-monologue style in which two professional voice talents read scripted dialogues, and HMMs were then trained with the corpus and used for speech synthesis. We conducted experiments in which the proposed method was evaluated by 24 subjects in three scenarios: text reading, dialogue and domestic service robot (DSR) scenarios. In the DSR scenario, we used a physical robot and compared our proposed method with a baseline method using the standard Mean Opinion Score criterion. Our experimental results showed that our proposed method's performance was (1) at the same level as the baseline method in the text-reading scenario and (2) exceeded it in the DSR scenario. We deployed our proposed system as a cloud-based speech synthesis service so that it can be used without any cost.
2014
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(2014) : Socially-appropriate approach paths using human data: The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication: Edinburgh, Scotland: IEEE, S. 1037-1042
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2014.6926389 Abstract: For service robots operating in indoor environments, the crucial task of navigation is often complicated by the presence of people. Simply treating humans in the environment as additional (often moving) obstacles can violate the complex set of social rules by which people navigate around each other. In contrast, emulating human behavior and navigating in a socially appropriate manner could positively affect people’s comfort with a robot’s presence and motion. We present a method of generating social paths for a robot to approach a person based on a small amount of human data. We also conducted a study in which a robot approached participants using both these social paths and straight-line, nonsocial paths. We found that both approaches were rated comparably when the robot approached from the participant’s front or side, but the social approach was significantly preferred when the robot came from behind the participant.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Collision avoidance, Data models, Distance measurement, Human behavior, ieee xplore, Legged locomotion, Magnetic heads, motion control, moving obstacles, Navigation, navigation task, person approach, robot motion, robot presence, service robot, social path, social path generation, social rules, socially-appropriate approach path, straight-line nonsocial path, Torso -
(2014) : Personalizing robot behavior for interruption in social human-robot interaction: 2014 IEEE International Workshop on Advanced Robotics and its Social Impacts: Evanston, IL: IEEE, S. 44-49
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ARSO.2014.7020978 Abstract: People engaging in an activity usually has individual tolerance to be interrupted [1], [2]. Humans subconsciously adapt their behaviors to draw other one’s attention and to get into a conversation based on their historical experiences, but robots often fail to be aware of humans’ feeling and thus interrupt their users repeatedly. To endow service robots with such socially acceptable ability, we propose an online human-aware interactive learning framework in this paper, under which the robot personalizes its behaviors according to both observed user’s attention and its conjecture about user’s awareness of itself. To this purpose, the correlation between the robot’s theory of awareness, user’s attention and robot behavior are explored through reinforcement learning techniques. The conducted experiment shows that the robot can personalize its interruption strategy, and the optimal policies converged for at least 26 episodes.
Keywords: Face, Hidden Markov models, human-robot interaction, ieee xplore, Interrupters, interruption strategy, Künstliche Intelligenz, learning (artificial intelligence), Markov processes, online human-aware interactive learning framework, reinforcement learning techniques, robot behavior personalization, Robot sensing systems, robot theory of awareness, service robot, social human-robot interaction, social sciences, user attention, user awareness -
(2014): Evaluation of Proxemic Scaling Functions for Social Robotics. In: IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems 44 (3), S. 374-385. DOI: 10.1109/THMS.2014.2304075
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2014.2304075 Abstract: This paper introduces and empirically evaluates two scaling functions to alter a robot’s physical movements based on proximity to a human. Previous research has focused on individual aspects of proxemics, like the appropriate distance to maintain from a human, but has not explored autonomous methods to adapt robot behavior as proximity changes. This paper proposes that robots in a social role should modify their behavior using a continuous function mapped to proximity. The method developed calculates a gain value from proximity readings, which is used to shape the execution of active behaviors on the robot. In order to identify the effects of different mappings from proximity to gain value, two different scaling functions were implemented on an affective search and rescue robot. The findings from a 72 participant study, in a high-fidelity mock disaster site, are examined with attention given to a new measure to determine proxemic awareness. The results indicated that for attributes of intelligence, likability, proxemic awareness, and submissiveness, a logarithmic-based scaling function is preferred over a linear-based scaling function, and over no scaling function. In areas of participant comfort and participant stress, the results indicated both logarithmic and linear scaling functions were preferred to no scaling.
Keywords: Angemessen(heit) (von Technik), Atmospheric measurements, autonomous methods, disasters, emergency services, high-fidelity mock disaster site, Human–robot interaction (HRI), human–robot proxemics, ieee xplore, intelligence attributes, Interpolation, Joints, Lighting, linear-based scaling function, logarithmic-based scaling function, Particle measurements, proxemic awareness, proxemic scaling function evaluation, Proxemics, rescue robots, robot physical movements, Robot sensing systems, search, service robot, Social robotic, social robots, submissiveness attributes -
(2014): Generating Task-Oriented Interactions of Service Robots. In: IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems 44 (8), S. 981-994. DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2014.2298214
Abstract: Human-robot interaction (HRI) may play a key role in enhancing a robot's capability in practical service tasks, allowing productive human-robot collaboration. To obtain appropriate human aid for conducting tasks, a robot should be capable of generating meaningful questions regarding the task procedures in real time and applying the results to modify its task plans or behaviors. However, few studies on integrating robot task management and HRI in such high-level task planning exist. In this paper, we propose a new scheme of script-based task planning and HRI that supports the planning and is generated by it. The planning operates on a set of plain and easily writable task procedures, or scripts. The approach produces robust, practical, and easy-to-manipulate robot behavior. Based on the scripts, the system identifies plan ambiguities that require interaction with humans, and resolves them using the human response. The interaction thus generated is highly relevant and task-oriented. The robot learns from the interaction history to improve its subsequent planning in general, or personalize it. Two simulation cases, of a home service and a museum-guide robot, are presented to show how the robots lead appropriate interaction and smoothly adjust their task plans to user commands or responses. Such close integration of HRI and robot task planning is expected to advance the practicality of service robots.
Keywords: ALIGNMENT, Communication, CONTROL ARCHITECTURE, Design, human-robot interaction, INTEGRATION, KNOWLEDGE, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), MIND, PROGRAMS, Realtechnik, Science and Technology Studies (STS), script, script-based task planning, service robot, Serviceroboter, Soziale Robotik, task-oriented interaction, Technik