30,945 research outputs found
In-home and remote use of robotic body surrogates by people with profound motor deficits
By controlling robots comparable to the human body, people with profound
motor deficits could potentially perform a variety of physical tasks for
themselves, improving their quality of life. The extent to which this is
achievable has been unclear due to the lack of suitable interfaces by which to
control robotic body surrogates and a dearth of studies involving substantial
numbers of people with profound motor deficits. We developed a novel, web-based
augmented reality interface that enables people with profound motor deficits to
remotely control a PR2 mobile manipulator from Willow Garage, which is a
human-scale, wheeled robot with two arms. We then conducted two studies to
investigate the use of robotic body surrogates. In the first study, 15 novice
users with profound motor deficits from across the United States controlled a
PR2 in Atlanta, GA to perform a modified Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and a
simulated self-care task. Participants achieved clinically meaningful
improvements on the ARAT and 12 of 15 participants (80%) successfully completed
the simulated self-care task. Participants agreed that the robotic system was
easy to use, was useful, and would provide a meaningful improvement in their
lives. In the second study, one expert user with profound motor deficits had
free use of a PR2 in his home for seven days. He performed a variety of
self-care and household tasks, and also used the robot in novel ways. Taking
both studies together, our results suggest that people with profound motor
deficits can improve their quality of life using robotic body surrogates, and
that they can gain benefit with only low-level robot autonomy and without
invasive interfaces. However, methods to reduce the rate of errors and increase
operational speed merit further investigation.Comment: 43 Pages, 13 Figure
Human-centred design methods : developing scenarios for robot assisted play informed by user panels and field trials
Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Copyright ElsevierThis article describes the user-centred development of play scenarios for robot assisted play, as part of the multidisciplinary IROMEC1 project that develops a novel robotic toy for children with special needs. The project investigates how robotic toys can become social mediators, encouraging children with special needs to discover a range of play styles, from solitary to collaborative play (with peers, carers/teachers, parents, etc.). This article explains the developmental process of constructing relevant play scenarios for children with different special needs. Results are presented from consultation with panel of experts (therapists, teachers, parents) who advised on the play needs for the various target user groups and who helped investigate how robotic toys could be used as a play tool to assist in the children’s development. Examples from experimental investigations are provided which have informed the development of scenarios throughout the design process. We conclude by pointing out the potential benefit of this work to a variety of research projects and applications involving human–robot interactions.Peer reviewe
Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people
This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of
elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly
people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new
applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses
the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and
users for which service robots are and are not suitable
Exploring miscommunication and collaborative behaviour in human-robot interaction
This paper presents the first step in designing a speech-enabled robot that is capable of natural management of miscommunication. It describes the methods
and results of two WOz studies, in which
dyads of naïve participants interacted in a
collaborative task. The first WOz study
explored human miscommunication
management. The second study investigated
how shared visual space and monitoring
shape the processes of feedback and communication in task-oriented interactions.
The results provide insights for the development of human-inspired and
robust natural language interfaces in robots
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A corpus-based analysis of route instructions in human-robot interaction
This paper investigates how users employ spatial descriptions to navigate a speech-enabled robot. We created a simulated environment in which users gave route instructions in a dialogic real-time interaction with a robot, which was
operated by naïve participants. The ability of robot monitoring was also manipulated in two experimental conditions. The results provide evidence that the content of the instructions and strategies of the users vary depending on the conditions and
demands of the interaction. As expected, the route instructions frequently were underspecified and arbitrary. The findings of
this study elucidate the complexity in interpreting spatial language in HRI. However, they also point to the need for
endowing mobile robots with richer dialogue resources to compensate for the uncertainties arising from language as well
as the environment
Human-Machine Interface for Remote Training of Robot Tasks
Regardless of their industrial or research application, the streamlining of
robot operations is limited by the proximity of experienced users to the actual
hardware. Be it massive open online robotics courses, crowd-sourcing of robot
task training, or remote research on massive robot farms for machine learning,
the need to create an apt remote Human-Machine Interface is quite prevalent.
The paper at hand proposes a novel solution to the programming/training of
remote robots employing an intuitive and accurate user-interface which offers
all the benefits of working with real robots without imposing delays and
inefficiency. The system includes: a vision-based 3D hand detection and gesture
recognition subsystem, a simulated digital twin of a robot as visual feedback,
and the "remote" robot learning/executing trajectories using dynamic motion
primitives. Our results indicate that the system is a promising solution to the
problem of remote training of robot tasks.Comment: Accepted in IEEE International Conference on Imaging Systems and
Techniques - IST201
Do (and say) as I say: Linguistic adaptation in human-computer dialogs
© Theodora Koulouri, Stanislao Lauria, and Robert D. Macredie. This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.There is strong research evidence showing that people naturally align to each other’s vocabulary, sentence structure, and acoustic features in dialog, yet little is known about how the alignment mechanism operates in the interaction between users and computer systems let alone how it may be exploited to improve the efficiency of the interaction. This article provides an account of lexical alignment in human–computer dialogs, based on empirical data collected in a simulated human–computer interaction scenario. The results indicate that alignment is present, resulting in the gradual reduction and stabilization of the vocabulary-in-use, and that it is also reciprocal. Further, the results suggest that when system and user errors occur, the development of alignment is temporarily disrupted and users tend to introduce novel words to the dialog. The results also indicate that alignment in human–computer interaction may have a strong strategic component and is used as a resource to compensate for less optimal (visually impoverished) interaction conditions. Moreover, lower alignment is associated with less successful interaction, as measured by user perceptions. The article distills the results of the study into design recommendations for human–computer dialog systems and uses them to outline a model of dialog management that supports and exploits alignment through mechanisms for in-use adaptation of the system’s grammar and lexicon
Telescience Testbed Pilot Program
The Telescience Testbed Pilot Program is developing initial recommendations for requirements and design approaches for the information systems of the Space Station era. During this quarter, drafting of the final reports of the various participants was initiated. Several drafts are included in this report as the University technical reports
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