Within the next decade, personal robots are expected to enter our homes, offices, schools, hospitals, construction sites, and workshops. For these robots to play a successful role in people's professional and personal lives, they need to display the kind of efficient and satisfying interaction that humans are accustomed to from each other. Designing this human-robot interaction is a multifaceted challenge, balancing requirements of the robot's intelligent behavior, physical form, and mechanical structure.
In this talk I present the approach I have been using in the past decade to develop several non-humanoid robotic systems, combining methods from Artificial Intelligence, Design, and Human-Computer Interaction.
All three research paths share the same underlying principles: Movement, timing, and embodiment. In terms of AI, I introduce the notion of human-robot fluency - the ability to accurately mesh the robot's activity with that of a human partner. I present computational cognitive architectures rooted in timing, joint action, and embodied cognition. Specifically, I discuss anticipatory action for collaboration, and a model of priming through perceptual simulation. I then describe an interactive robotic improvisation system that uses embodied gestures for simultaneous, yet responsive, joint musicianship.
In terms of the robot's physical form, I use techniques from 3D character animation, sculpture, industrial, and interaction design. Dynamic gestures and behaviors drive decisions on the robot's surface and mechanical design, and are then combined with aesthetic and functional requirements to settle on the robot's form and structure.
The third pillar of my work is the experimental study of people interacting with robots. My lab developed a series of low-cost smartphone-based robots, which we use in situations of disclosure, conflict, compliance, and joint experiences. Our studies investigate the role of movement, timing, and nonverbal behavior in the social relationship between humans and robots, in an effort to design robots that don’t threaten, but enhance people’s everyday lives.
