19 April 2014

Improving Human-Robot Connection

Researchers are programming robots to communicate with people using human-like body language and cues, an important step toward bringing robots into homes. Researchers at the University of British Columbia enlisted the help of a human-friendly robot named Charlie to study the simple task of handing an object to a person. Past research has shown that people have difficulty figuring out when to reach out and take an object from a robot because robots fail to provide appropriate nonverbal cues.


Researchers tested three variations of this interaction with Charlie and the 102 study participants. Programming the robot to use eye gaze as a non-verbal cue made the handover more fluid. Researchers found that people reached out to take the water bottle sooner in scenarios where the robot moved its head to look at the area where it would hand over the water bottle or looked to the handover location and then up at the person to make eye contact.

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