Applied ontologies and standards for service robots

Service robotics is an emerging application area for human-centered technologies. The rise of household and personal assistance robots forecasts a human–robot collaborative society. One of the robotics community’s major task is to streamline development trends, work on the harmonization of taxonomies and ontologies, along with the standardization of terms, interfaces and technologies. It is important to keep the scientific progress and public understanding synchronous, through efficient outreach and education. These efforts support the collaboration among research groups, and lead to widely accepted standards, beneficial for both manufacturers and users. This article describes the necessity of developing robotics ontologies and standards focusing on the past and current research efforts. In addition, the paper proposes a roadmap for service robotics ontology development. The IEEE Robotics & Automation Society is sponsoring the working group Ontologies for Robotics and Automation. The efforts of the Working group are presented here, aiming to connect the cutting edge technology with the users of these services—the general public.     

论游戏的交互模式与操作设计

游戏是一门新生的艺术,具有独立的美学范式和艺术结构。游戏交互设计的优劣,直接影响着玩家的游戏体验和感性判断。本文围绕游戏的交互设计展开论述,分别从游戏的交互模式和操作方式两方面进行分析,提出游戏的交互设计应该充分注重游戏性的表达,致力于实现游戏界面的无缝性、操作的自然性和可用性,以最终体现游戏特有的动作乐趣、沉浸乐趣和自由乐趣。     

Participatory design of a robot for demonstrating an epileptic seizure

ABSTRACT

We present the methodology and results of participatory design of a robot for presenting an epileptic seizure and a scenario of the educational workshop using this robot. Children with epilepsy encounter stigma and stereotypes and may receive inadequate aid when having an epileptic seizure. The goal of the larger project was to use the prototype device in a series of workshops for improving teachers' actions during an epileptic seizure and their attitudes towards epileptic students. In this paper, we show how various design goals for an educational robot were accomplished to fit the needs of all identified stakeholders, particularly people with epilepsy.

We used a co-design (participatory design) approach through a series of meetings participated by members of the association Polish Association for People Suffering from Epilepsy, students and faculty members of the biomedical engineering and robotics departments, teachers, psychologists and medical specialists (epileptologist, neurologist).

These meetings created an opportunity for a better understanding of the (functional and nonfunctional) requirements and resulting tradeoffs and led the participants to find appropriate solutions. Participation of people with epilepsy in the design process allowed them to deal with the potentially stereotyped representation of themselves. The prototype robot, therefore, combined goals of various stakeholders, such as an accurate presentation of an epileptic seizure, lightweight, ease of use and control, while preserving the dignity of people with epilepsy.

As a result of the co-designing process, an inexpensive robot was created and used in a series of 10 pilot workshops with 217 participants, mainly teachers of primary and middle schools. Teachers improved their understanding of epilepsy and suggested further improvements to the system.     

Do the number of robots and the participant’s gender influence conformity effect from multiple robots?

ABSTRACT

The conformity effect is a critical social phenomenon through which one individual or a particular group influences the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors of another person or group. We focused on two essential factors that influence the power of the conformity effect: the number of people and gender. In this paper, we investigated whether conformity effects have changed due to the number of robots and the gender of the participants. We experimentally compared conformity effects by considering these two factors while participants answered questions after listening to incorrect answers from two, four, or six robots. The experimental results showed that the conformity ratio with the six robots is significantly larger than the two/four robots, and the conformity effect for female participants is stronger than male participants, similar to human-human conformity effects.     

Ecological interface design and sensor noise

This paper investigates the effects of the presence and magnitude of sensor noise on operators' performance and control stability when they use an Ecological Interface Design (EID) interface and a non-EID interface. Sensor noise was gradually increased in selected low-level physical sensors of DURESS III, a representative thermal-hydraulic process simulation. There are two important findings. First, participants in the EID condition achieved target goals significantly faster across all magnitudes of sensor noise. Second, participants in the EID condition exhibited more stable control; experiencing fewer and shorter oscillations around the target goals. This is the first study to empirically investigate the impact of the presence and magnitude of sensor noise on the robustness and effectiveness of an EID interface. These findings are important if EID is to be applied in industrial settings.     

A versatile interaction framework for robot programming based on hand gestures and poses

This paper proposes a framework for industrial and collaborative robot programming based on the integration of hand gestures and poses. The framework allows operators to control the robot via both End-Effector (EE) and joint movements and to transfer compound shapes accurately to the robot. Seventeen hand gestures, which cover the position and orientation controls of the robotic EE and other auxiliary operations, are designed according to cognitive psychology. Gestures are classified by a deep neural network, which is pre-trained for two-hand pose estimation and fine-tuned on a custom dataset, achieving a test accuracy of 99%. The index finger’s pointing direction and the hand’s orientation are extracted via 3D hand pose estimation to indicate the robotic EE’s moving direction and orientation, respectively. The number of stretched fingers is detected via two-hand pose estimation to represent decimal digits for selecting robot joints and inputting numbers. Finally, we integrate these three manners seamlessly to form a programming framework.We conducted two interaction experiments. The reaction time of the proposed hand gestures in indicating randomly given instructions is significantly less than that of other gesture sets, such as American Sign Language (ASL). The accuracy of our method in compound shape reconstruction is much better than that of hand movement trajectory-based methods, and the operating time is comparable with that of teach pendants.     

A framework for the assessment of synthetic personalities according to user perception

Endowing artificial conversational agents with personality is a very promising way to obtain more believable user interactions with robots and computers. However, although many authors have studied how to create an agent׳s personality and how it affects performance and user satisfaction, less attention has been paid to assess whether the designed agent׳s personality corresponds to the users׳ perception, whether it is easily recognizable, and what is the effect that the user׳s own personality has in the discrimination of the agents׳ personality. In this paper we present an assessment framework to address these issues in an integrated way, which in our opinion offers enough flexibility to consider the diversity of application domains and evaluation approaches that can be found in the literature. The framework is based on numerical measures, which facilitate the interpretation of results and makes it possible to compare and rank different agents with respect to the user׳s perception of the rendered personality. In addition, we have developed a tool that implements the framework, which may be very useful for researchers in order to easily evaluate different agent personalities.     

Human–robot collaboration and machine learning: A systematic review of recent research

Technological progress increasingly envisions the use of robots interacting with people in everyday life. Human–robot collaboration (HRC) is the approach that explores the interaction between a human and a robot, during the completion of a common objective, at the cognitive and physical level. In HRC works, a cognitive model is typically built, which collects inputs from the environment and from the user, elaborates and translates these into information that can be used by the robot itself. Machine learning is a recent approach to build the cognitive model and behavioural block, with high potential in HRC. Consequently, this paper proposes a thorough literature review of the use of machine learning techniques in the context of human–robot collaboration. 45 key papers were selected and analysed, and a clustering of works based on the type of collaborative tasks, evaluation metrics and cognitive variables modelled is proposed. Then, a deep analysis on different families of machine learning algorithms and their properties, along with the sensing modalities used, is carried out. Among the observations, it is outlined the importance of the machine learning algorithms to incorporate time dependencies. The salient features of these works are then cross-analysed to show trends in HRC and give guidelines for future works, comparing them with other aspects of HRC not appeared in the review.     

Effect of self-representation of interaction history by the robot on perceptions of mind and positive relationship: a case study on a home-use robot

A question in research is concerning the most important factors for increasing the motivation of a human to continue interacting with an interactional robot. Previous studies have argued that the perceptions of mind and interactability of the robot by the interacting human are essential factors. However, ways of improving such perceptions have not sufficiently investigated. In this study, we focused on the case of a home-use interactional robot and investigated ways to improve such perceptions. We proposed the perceived interaction history of the robot to be another essential factor and hypothesized that adding this factor can promote the perceptions of mind and positive relationship. We conducted a human–robot interaction experiment with 32 human subjects, and the experimental results verified our hypothesis.     

Telenoid android robot as an embodied perceptual social regulation medium engaging natural human–humanoid interaction

The present paper aims to validate our research on human–humanoid interaction (HHI) using the minimalist humanoid robot Telenoid. We conducted the human–robot interaction test with 142 young people who had no prior interaction experience with this robot. The main goal is the analysis of the two social dimensions (“Perception” and “Believability”) useful for increasing the natural behaviour between users and Telenoid. We administered our custom questionnaire to human subjects in association with a well defined experimental setting (“ordinary and goal-guided task”). A thorough analysis of the questionnaires has been carried out and reliability and internal consistency in correlation between the multiple items has been calculated. Our experimental results show that the perceptual behaviour and believability, as implicit social competences, could improve the meaningfulness and the natural-like sense of human–humanoid interaction in everyday life task-driven activities. Telenoid is perceived as an autonomous cooperative agent for a shared environment by human beings.     

CaRINA Intelligent Robotic Car: Architectural design and applications

This paper presents the development of two outdoor intelligent vehicles platforms named CaRINA I and CaRINA II, their system architecture, simulation tools, and control modules. It also describes the development of the intelligent control system modules allowing the mobile robots and vehicles to navigate autonomously in controlled urban environments. Research work has been carried out on tele-operation, driver assistance systems, and autonomous navigation using the vehicles as platforms to experiments and validation. Our robotic platforms include mechanical adaptations and the development of an embedded software architecture. This paper addresses the design, sensing, decision making, and acting infrastructure and several experimental tests that have been carried out to evaluate both platforms and proposed algorithms. The main contributions of this work is the proposed architecture, that is modular and flexible, allowing it to be instantiated into different robotic platforms and applications. The communication and security aspects are also investigated.     

Navigational issues in the design of online self-administered questionnaires

Answering questions on surveys involves the access of internal knowledge structures, the retrieval of records from external databases and the navigation of items on the interface. In this study a number of alternative designs for online questionnaire presentation were investigated. A long heterogeneous survey was partitioned in four ways: whole form, semantic sections, screen pages and single items. Questionnaires were presented with or without an index, resulting in eight versions. Neither initial completion times nor subjective assessments differed among the eight versions due to the highly linear navigation of the surveys. Respondents were asked to revisit 16 questions based on the topic of the question or on the question number and to change their answers. Revision times reflected ease of finding items in the structure of the survey and the use of an index to the sections of the questionnaire.     

Human–robot interaction in industrial collaborative robotics: a literature review of the decade 2008–2017

ABSTRACT

Currently, a large number of industrial robots have been deployed to replace or assist humans to perform various repetitive and dangerous manufacturing tasks. However, based on current technological capabilities, such robotics field is rapidly evolving so that humans are not only sharing the same workspace with robots, but also are using robots as useful assistants. Consequently, due to this new type of emerging robotic systems, industrial collaborative robots or cobots, human and robot co-workers have been able to work side-by-side as collaborators to accomplish tasks in industrial environments. Therefore, new human–robot interaction systems have been developed for such systems to be able to utilize the capabilities of both humans and robots. Accordingly, this article presents a literature review of major recent works on human–robot interactions in industrial collaborative robots, conducted during the last decade (between 2008 and 2017). Additionally, the article proposes a tentative classification of the content of these works into several categories and sub-categories. Finally, this paper addresses some challenges of industrial collaborative robotics and explores future research issues.     

User evaluation of a novel eye-based control modality for robot-assisted object retrieval

In recent years, great efforts have been put into the investigation of assistive robotics. However, rapid growth in robot functionality has caused control of these robots to become more complex. Natural interaction interfaces between the user and robot systems are highly desired to promote the usability of these robots in practical applications. This paper presents a novel intuitive gaze-based system, which enables a user to effectively command an assistive robot with his/her gaze. This system has the potential to help those, who have limited mobility and/or are confined in bed, with their daily living. Using this system, the object that needs to be manipulated can be directly identified and localized by simply looking at it by the user. Then the assistive robot is activated to perform appropriate manipulation of the object. In the experiments, participants were able to successfully accomplish the object retrieval tasks using the presented system. Moreover, results from subjective evaluation showed high usability of the presented system.     

Automotive HMI design and participatory user involvement: review and perspectives

Abstract

Automotive human–machine interface (HMI) design is facing new challenges due to the technological advances of the last decades. The design process has to be adapted in order to address human factors and road safety challenges. It is now widely accepted that user involvement in the HMI design process is valuable. However, the current form of user involvement in industry remains at the stages of concept assessment and usability tests. Moreover, the literature in other fields (e.g. information systems) promotes a broader user involvement with participatory design (i.e. the user is fully involved in the development process). This article reviews the established benefits of participatory design and reveals perspectives for automotive HMI quality improvement in a cognitive ergonomic framework.

Practitioner Summary: Automotive HMI quality determines, in part, drivers’ ability to perform primary driving tasks while using in-vehicle devices. User involvement in the design process is a key point to contribute to HMI quality. This article reports the potential benefits of a broad involvement from drivers to meet automotive HMI design challenges.     

Bridging the reality gap between the Webots simulator and e-puck robots

This work presents a set of techniques to improve the cross-compatibility between the Webots simulator and the educational e-puck mobile robot. The work is motivated by the need of a realistic simulation environment, especially designed to consider the unique challenges associated to multi-robot systems (MRS), such as the robot–robot interaction (RRI). This article starts by proposing a new Webots programming architecture that provides full control of the e-puck’s firmware. By doing so, one can easily improve the already existing e-puck’s functionalities on Webots, as well as adding new functionalities required by most MRS applications. Among the range of new possible functionalities, this article describes the successful implementation of the microphone, the speaker, and the Bluetooth for robot–robot communication. Due to the limitations of the e-puck’s Bluetooth modules, this work goes even further by bringing some insights about the Gumstix Overo COM turret and how robot–robot communication may be achieved using WiFi technology. The outcomes provided by the experiments conducted using both virtual and real e-pucks under the Webots framework open new doors for low-cost multi-robot applications.     

自由交互式网络自主学习平台开发与改进

当今社会随着网络信息技术的高速发展,资源共享、信息交互和网络化教学,已经成为高校教学模式的重要组成部分和发展热点。这其中网络学习平台是普及较广、效果较好的一种学习模式。本系统是在传统学习平台的基础上,成功的加入学习计划、小组学习和评价反馈等功能模块,有效的提高了学生学习的自主性和目的性,实现了教和学的高效融合。     

Interactive lounge: an interdisciplinary approach to the design of a gestural interaction device

Among the many new opportunities that digital technologies are enabling are an increased capacity for viewers to interact not only with the program content, but with an increasingly wide array of other digital applications. Within this context this project has developed a new interaction device (incorporating gestural platform technology) and user interfaces to facilitate interactive access to digital media in a lounge room setting. This paper provides an overview of an interdisciplinary design process applied by Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) researchers—in order to develop the device and present in detail its unique features.     

Improved binaural sound localization and tracking for unknown time-varying number of speakers

A method based on the generalized cross-correlation (GCC) method weighted by the phase transform (PHAT) has been developed for binaural sound source localization (SSL) and tracking of multiple sound sources. Accurate binaural audition is important for applying inexpensive and widely applicable auditory capabilities to robots and systems. Conventional SSL based on the GCC-PHAT method is degraded by low resolution of the time difference of arrival estimation, by the interference created when the sound waves arrive at a microphone from two directions around the robot head, and by impaired performance when there are multiple speakers. The low-resolution problem is solved by using a maximum-likelihood-based SSL method in the frequency domain. The multipath interference problem is avoided by incorporating a new time delay factor into the GCC-PHAT method with assuming a spherical robot head. The performance when there are multiple speakers was improved by using a multisource speech tracking method consisting of voice activity detection (VAD) and K-means clustering. The standard K-means clustering algorithm was extended to enable tracking of an unknown time-varying number of speakers by adding two additional steps that increase the number of clusters automatically and eliminate clusters containing incorrect direction estimations. Experiments conducted on the SIG-2 humanoid robot show that this method outperforms the conventional SSL method; it reduces localization errors by 18.1° on average and by over 37° in the side directions. It also tracks multiple speakers in real time with tracking errors below 4.35°.     

The benefit of being physically present: A survey of experimental works comparing copresent robots,telepresent robots and virtual agents

The effects of physical embodiment and physical presence were explored through a survey of 33 experimental works comparing how people interacted with physical robots and virtual agents. A qualitative assessment of the direction of quantitative effects demonstrated that robots were more persuasive and perceived more positively when physically present in a user׳s environment than when digitally-displayed on a screen either as a video feed of the same robot or as a virtual character analog; robots also led to better user performance when they were collocated as opposed to shown via video on a screen. However, participants did not respond differently to physical robots and virtual agents when both were displayed digitally on a screen – suggesting that physical presence, rather than physical embodiment, characterizes people׳s responses to social robots. Implications for understanding psychological response to physical and virtual agents and for methodological design are discussed.