When a robot orients visitors to an exhibit. Referential practices and interactional dynamics in the real world

Pitsch K, Wrede S. When a robot orients visitors to an exhibit. Referential practices and interactional dynamics in the real world. In: Ro-Man 2014. Edinburgh; 2014: 36-42.A basic task for robots interacting with humans consists in guiding their focus of attention. Existing guidelines for a robot’s multimodal deixis are primarily focused on the speaker (talk-gesture-coordination, handshape). Conducting a field trial with a museum guide robot, we tested these indivi- dualistic referential strategies in the dynamic conditions of real-world HRI and found that their success ranges between 27% and 95%. Qualitative video-based micro-analysis revealed that the users experienced problems when they were not facing the robot at the moment of the deictic gesture. Also the importance of the robot’s head orientation became evident. Implications are drawn as design guidelines for an inter- actional account of modeling referential strategies for HRI

Human multi-robot interaction based on gesture recognition

This Master Thesis is devoted to the development of a gestural interface to interact with two robots, a NAO and a Wifibot, in a similar way as humans do. A Kinect 2 sensor is used to recognize the two gestures that have been implemented in the application, which are the pointing and waving gestures