Estimating Optimal Placement for a Robot in Social Group Interaction

In this paper, we present a model to propose anoptimal placement for a robot in a social group interaction. Ourmodel estimates the O-space according to the F-formation theory. The method automatically calculates a suitable placementfor the robot. An evaluation of the method has been performedby conducting an experiment where participants stand in differ-ent formations and a robot is teleoperated to join the group. Inone condition, the operator positions the robot according to thespecified location given by our algorithm. In another condition,operators have the freedom to position the robot according totheir personal choice. Follow-up questionnaires were performedto determine which of the placements were preferred by theparticipants. The results indicate that the proposed methodfor automatic placement of the robot is supported from theparticipants. The contribution of this work resides in a novelmethod to automatically estimate the best placement of therobot, as well as the results from user experiments to verify thequality of this method. These results suggest that teleoperatedrobots such as mobile robot telepresence systems could benefitfrom tools that assist operators in placing the robot in groupsin a socially accepted manner.Successful Agein