Human-Robots Interaction:Robotics Institute Focus Area

Vineet Kamat (CEE) Emily Mower Provost (CSE)

Nadine Sarter (IOE) Dawn Tilbury (ME)

Human commander/supervisor

• “Autonomous” robots are rarely purely autonomous, there must be some level of human interaction, although these challenges are not always considered

• Issues to consider in a human-robot coordination: – Mutual understanding, modeling on both sides

• Can robot understand the human (e.g. emotion? Workload of human?)• Directed attention: Can robot get attention of human? And vice-versa

– Function allocation in human-robot teams• How to learn states of agents (both human & robot)

– Levels of autonomy, how to allocate for different tasks– Social aspects of mixed teams, expectations of partnership –

grounding • Spillover boundaries from engineering to social science

Physical interaction of human & robot• Teleoperation opportunities and challenges:

– Virtual and augmented reality, visual feedback– Tactile/haptic feedback– Mechanical devices for sending commands (master/slave), joysticks, tablet computers– Voice and gesture commands– Sense of presence in remote environment– Teleoperation of a swarm of robots

• Human(s) & robot(s) working closely together in a shared environment, – Safety, certification: can the robot get out of the cage?– Human driver in a car, how to interact, dynamic environment

• If the car “gives up” the human has to take on the cognitive load. Need a transition period.• Q: Does the human need to be the commander all the time? Keep the human alert?

• Exoskeletons: Robotics integrated with human limbs – Augment construction workers or other laborers– Rehabilitation – Quadriplegic– Embodiment: robot becomes part of human (wearable robots), using robot to interface to

environment• Robots & humans working together to change the environment

– Robot is a tool for doing work on the environment– Also exploring/gathering info from environment

Other HRI considerations

• Can the robot be considered as an extension of human (not delegate or partner)– Human’s perception of remote environment, immersion– Transfer of emotions to robot

• How to characterize expectations of robot?• Rights of robots – philosophical issues?– Also responsibilities?

• Hierarchy: Is human top/environment bottom?– “affordances” from psychology– Emergent behaviors? Unexpected behaviors?

Others interested in HRI (?)

• Ben Kuipers (CSE)• Ella Atkins (Aero)• Kira Barton (ME)• Gabor Orosz (ME)• Cindy Chestek (BME), brain-machine interface• Rehab robotics: Art, David, Brent, etc. • School of Information

– Mark Newman – Lionel Robert (human-human interaction)

• Medical school interest in surgical robotics• Somebody from psychology? (Toni Antonucci?) Neuroscience?