Organizational concepts and interaction between humans and robots in industrial environments

This paper is discussing the intuitive interaction with robotic systems and the conceptualisation connected with known organisational problems. In particular, the focus will be on the manufacturing industry with respect to its social dimension. One of the aims is to identify relevant research questions about the possibility of development of safer robot systems in closer human-machine intuitive interaction systems at the manufacturing shop-floor level. We try to contribute to minimize the cognitive and perceptual workload for robot operators in complex working systems. In particular that will be highly relevant when more different robots with different roles and produced by different companies or designers are to be used in the manufacturing industry to a larger extent. The social sciences approach to such technology assessment is of high relevance to understand the dimensions of the intuitive interaction concept

SMOOVS: Towards calibration-free text entry by gaze using smooth pursuit movements

Gaze-based text spellers have proved useful for people with severe motor diseases, but lack acceptance in general human-computer interaction. In order to use gaze spellers for public displays, they need to be robust and provide an intuitive interaction concept. However, traditional dwell- and blink-based systems need accurate calibration which contradicts fast and intuitive interaction. We developed the first gaze speller explicitly utilizing smooth pursuit eye movements and their particular characteristics. The speller achieves sufficient accuracy with a one-point calibration and does not require extensive training. Its interface consists of character elements which move apart from each other in two stages. As each element has a unique track, gaze following this track can be detected by an algorithm that does not rely on the exact gaze coordinates and compensates latency-based artefacts. In a user study, 24 participants tested four speed-levels of moving elements to determine an optimal interaction speed. At 300 px/s users showed highest overall performance of 3.34 WPM (without training). Subjective ratings support the finding that this pace is superior

A unified framework for information integration based on information geometry

We propose a unified theoretical framework for quantifying spatio-temporal interactions in a stochastic dynamical system based on information geometry. In the proposed framework, the degree of interactions is quantified by the divergence between the actual probability distribution of the system and a constrained probability distribution where the interactions of interest are disconnected. This framework provides novel geometric interpretations of various information theoretic measures of interactions, such as mutual information, transfer entropy, and stochastic interaction in terms of how interactions are disconnected. The framework therefore provides an intuitive understanding of the relationships between the various quantities. By extending the concept of transfer entropy, we propose a novel measure of integrated information which measures causal interactions between parts of a system. Integrated information quantifies the extent to which the whole is more than the sum of the parts and can be potentially used as a biological measure of the levels of consciousness

Augmented Reality Computer-Aided Drawing (AR-CAD)

While Virtual Reality (VR) replaces the entire real world with virtual images, Augmented Reality (AR) superimposes virtual images on the real world. Augmented Reality (a most useful form of Mixed Reality (MR)) is a popular concept for using computers to overlay virtual information onto a view of the real world. In 2000, Phillip Dunston then at the University of Washington in Seattle and his research team presented the initial concept of AR CAD developed for supporting design and construction. The AR CAD concept is the addition of an AR assistant viewer to standard CAD to provide a more intuitive interaction with design models

Interactivity and thought

A shared tenet of embodied, embedded, situated and distributed cognition is that people make sense of things interactively. They run a simulation, they exchange words, often taking turns to change and steer the flow of interaction; they gesture, they handle or manipulate things, they write, sketch or model. Because the concept of interaction seems intuitive, and the phenomena so pervasive, researchers tend to use the term to do more work than they have time to explain. This symposium explores different ideas about the way interactivity is understood, and how it figures in thought processe