Human-Robot Interaction

Dr. Vladimir Lumelsky

National Science Foundation

Tele-operation is an important area of human-robot interaction

• But, human spatial reasoning skills are rather limited.

• Intelligence is need on the robot side

Here, human spatial reasoning is acceptable for controlling a small vehicle, with

a bird’s view of the maze

.S

T

... but human performance is hardly acceptable here

…and it’s worse in controlling manipulators/machines

2D manipulator

...Virtual

...Physical

Human performance in 2D manipulator control

Human performance in 2D manipulator control

Nearly optimal path

More complex machines make motion planning only harder

Needs and Questions

• Robotics community needs appreciation of the human side: psychology, cognition, fatigue, acceptance, rejection, role of sophistication, learning, logic, spatial reasoning.

• Studies are needed of limits of human cognition skills when manipulating physical objects: spatial, logical, temporal.

• We need to define and start cognitive science research necessary for development of human-machine systems.

• Example. We want to put a robot in an elderly person's apartment: What responsibilities/skills are expected from the person, and which must be given to the robot?