A survey of interfaces using handheld devices to intuitively drive and show objects to a social robot.

International audienceWithin this paper, we present three human-robot interfaces using handheld device as mediator object between the human and the robot: a virtual keyboard interface on the iPhone, a gesture based interface on the iPhone too and a Wiimote based interface. These interfaces allow to show particular objects to a robot. They were designed to be ease- of-use, specially by non-expert users, and to span different metaphors of interaction. In order to compare them and study the impact of the metaphor on the interaction, we designed a user-study based on two obstacle courses. Each of the 25 participants performed two courses with two different interfaces (total of 100 trials). Although the three interfaces were rather equally efficient and all considered as satisfying by the participants, the iPhone gesture interface was largely preferred while the Wiimote was poorly chosen due to the impact of the chosen metaphor

A Pilot Study with a Novel Setup for Collaborative Play of the Humanoid Robot KASPAR with children with autism

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article describes a pilot study in which a novel experimental setup, involving an autonomous humanoid robot, KASPAR, participating in a collaborative, dyadic video game, was implemented and tested with children with autism, all of whom had impairments in playing socially and communicating with others. The children alternated between playing the collaborative video game with a neurotypical adult and playing the same game with the humanoid robot, being exposed to each condition twice. The equipment and experimental setup were designed to observe whether the children would engage in more collaborative behaviours while playing the video game and interacting with the adult than performing the same activities with the humanoid robot. The article describes the development of the experimental setup and its first evaluation in a small-scale exploratory pilot study. The purpose of the study was to gain experience with the operational limits of the robot as well as the dyadic video game, to determine what changes should be made to the systems, and to gain experience with analyzing the data from this study in order to conduct a more extensive evaluation in the future. Based on our observations of the childrens’ experiences in playing the cooperative game, we determined that while the children enjoyed both playing the game and interacting with the robot, the game should be made simpler to play as well as more explicitly collaborative in its mechanics. Also, the robot should be more explicit in its speech as well as more structured in its interactions. Results show that the children found the activity to be more entertaining, appeared more engaged in playing, and displayed better collaborative behaviours with their partners (For the purposes of this article, ‘partner’ refers to the human/robotic agent which interacts with the children with autism. We are not using the term’s other meanings that refer to specific relationships or emotional involvement between two individuals.) in the second sessions of playing with human adults than during their first sessions. One way of explaining these findings is that the children’s intermediary play session with the humanoid robot impacted their subsequent play session with the human adult. However, another longer and more thorough study would have to be conducted in order to better re-interpret these findings. Furthermore, although the children with autism were more interested in and entertained by the robotic partner, the children showed more examples of collaborative play and cooperation while playing with the human adult.Peer reviewe

Gesture-based Personal Archive Browsing in a Lean-back Environment

As personal digital archives of multimedia data become more ubiquitous, the challenge of supporting multimodal access to such archives becomes an important research topic. In this paper we present and positively evaluate a gesture-based interface to a personal media archive which operates on a living room TV using a Wiimote. We illustrate that Wiimote interaction can outperform a point-and-click interaction as reported in a user study. In addition, a set of guidelines is presented for organising and interacting with large personal media archives in the enjoyment oriented (lean-back) environment of the living room

A Survey of Interaction Techniques and Devices for Large High Resolution Displays

Innovations in large high-resolution wall-sized displays have been yielding benefits to visualizations in industry and academia, leading to a rapidly growing increase of their implementations. In scenarios such as these, the displayed visual information tends to be larger than the users field of view, hence the necessity to move away from traditional interaction methods towards more suitable interaction devices and techniques. This paper aspires to explore the state-of-the-art with respect to such technologies for large high-resolution displays

Physically Interactive Robogames: Definition and Design Guidelines

There is evidence that people expects to be able to play games with autonomous robots, so that robogames could be one of the next killer ap- plications for Robotics. Physically Interactive RoboGames (PIRG) is a new application field where autonomous robots are involved in games requiring physical interaction with people. Since research in this field is moving its first steps, definitions and design guidelines are still largely missing. n this paper, a definition for PIRG is proposed, together with guidelines for their design. Physically Interactive, Competitive RoboGames (PICoRG) are also introduced. They are a particular kind of PIRG where human players are involved in a challenging, highly interactive and competitive game activity with autonomous robots. The development process of a PICoRG, Jedi Trainer , is presented to show a practical application of the proposed guidelines. The game has been successfully played in different unstructured environments, by general public; feedback is reported and analysed

Integration intuitiver Eingabegeräte ins MITK zur Optimierung von Mensch-Computer-Interaktion in der Medizin

Der Einsatz von virtuellen Szenen in der Medizin gewinnt zunehmend an Bedeutung, weil Navigations- und Planungshilfen für den Arzt geschaffen werden. Die Verwendung von komplexen Computersimulationen soll den Behandlungsprozess verkürzen und gleichzeitig die Behandlungsqualität durch eine gezielte Vorgehensweise verbessern. Wegen der hohen Komplexität von Bildverarbeitungsalgorithmen ist es jedoch schwierig, eine einfache Interaktion mit den medizinischen Daten zu ermöglichen. Zudem werden Benutzereingaben durch die Eingabegeräte wie Maus und Tastatur eingeschränkt, da diese in vielen Fällen keine einfache Steuerung zulassen. Diese Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Umsetzung intuitiver Interaktionskonzepte für den alltäglichen klinischen Gebrauch durch Verwendung von intuitiven Eingabegeräten (3D Maus, Wii Controller). Die Entwicklungen basieren auf dem Medical Imaging Interaction Toolkit (MITK) des Deutschen Krebsforschungszentrums (DKFZ). Dabei wurden von einer einfachen Kamerafahrt in einer Volumenvisualisierung über die Realisierung eines Headtracking in einer virtuellen Realität bis hin zu der Interaktion mit 3D Objekten konkrete Anwendungsbeispiele erarbeitet, analysiert und bewertet

Selected papers on Hands-on Science II

This second volume of the "Selected Papers on Hands-on Science" the Hands-on Science Network is publishing, reunites some of the most relevant works presented at the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions of the annual International Conference on Hands-on Science. From pre-school science education to lifelong science learning and teacher training, in formal non-formal and informal contexts, the large diversified range of works that conforms this book surely renders it an important tool to schools and educators and all involved in science education and on the promotion of scientific literacy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio