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?