EAGER: Human centered robotic system design

[1548409] （Hovakimyan）今天的技术进步有可能在未来20-30年内戏剧性地改变每个人的生活。在不远的未来社会中，人类、无人驾驶飞机、无人驾驶汽车和机器人共存，机器和人类共享空域、道路和室内环境。这一观点提出了重大挑战，属于工程学、心理学、社会科学、政治学、伦理学和经济学的范畴。受这一愿景的启发，该项目提出为未来世界奠定基础，在未来世界中，汽车、无人机和机器人机器将自动与人类共同生活和工作。因此，重要的是建立一个科学社区，心理学家和工程师一起工作，以开发社会信任的自主移动机器人。更具体地说，我们建议制定严格相关的科学和以人为中心的心理问题（即，实际安全，人类的感知安全和人类的舒适度），这些问题出现在这样的系统中，人类和机器人需要在共享空间中安全互动。总体目标是为人类与灵活且能够安全操作的自主机器人交互提供通用设计框架和控制体系结构。本文主要研究以人为本的机器人设计与控制问题。该项目的目标是为解决多个人机系统中出现的与人类相关的问题提供基础，在这些系统中，机器人必须在人类在场（并与人类合作）的情况下执行任务。特别是，本提案的目标是对机器人系统与现实生活中人类居住环境集成中至关重要的两个问题的基本理解：首先，人类如何将自主移动机器人视为机器人外观和行为的功能；其次，如何设计和控制移动机器人，以提高人们在环境中的舒适度和感知安全性。这里的研究假设了一项合作研究，涉及伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的机械工程、心理学和计算机科学系。在这项研究中，人类对机器人外观和行为的感知是主要课题，它必须定义机器人被社会接受的意义，并在人类和机器人之间产生共鸣。人-机器人系统中的社交礼仪将通过对人类行为的研究来寻求。在这个雄心勃勃的研究项目的初始阶段，贝克曼研究所的虚拟现实洞穴和CSL智能机器人实验室的动作捕捉套件将作为测试和验证环境，以获得机器人的设计特征和行为协议，以促进这些机器人的发展。这第一步的结果将为该领域的进一步研究提供基础，并将为未来的社会技术社会做出贡献。

1548409(Hovakimyan)Technological advances today have the potential to transform the life of everybody within the next 20-30 years in a dramatic way. The society of non-distant future assumes co-existence of humans, pilotless planes, driverless cars, and robots, in which machines and human beings share the airspace, the roads, and populate indoor environments. This idea poses significant challenges, falling within the scope of engineering, psychology, social science, politics, ethics, and economics. Inspired by this vision, the project proposes to lay down the foundations for the world of the future, in which cars, drones, and robotic machines autonomously co-habit and work with humans. Hence, it is important to build a scientific community, where psychologists and engineers work together in order to develop socially trustable autonomous mobile robots. More specifically, we propose to formulate rigorously relevant scientific and human centered psychological concerns (namely, actual safety, humans' perceived safety, and humans' comfort) that arise in such systems, where humans and robots are required to safely interact in a shared space. The overarching objective is to provide a general design framework and control architecture for human interaction with autonomous robots that is flexible and capable of safe operations.This proposal focuses on the problem of human centered robotic design and control. The goal of this project is to provide the foundations to address human related concerns that arise in multiple human-robot systems, where robots have to perform tasks in the presence of (and in cooperation with) humans. In particular, this proposal targets the fundamental understanding of two issues that are crucial in the integration of robotic systems into real-life human populated environments: first, how humans perceive autonomous mobile robots as a function of robots' appearance and behavior; second, how to design and control mobile robots so that to improve the level of comfort and perceived safety of the people present in the environment. The research here assumes a collaborative study, involving Mechanical Engineering, Psychology and Computer Science Departments at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in which human perception of robotic appearance and behavior is the main subject that has to define what it means for a robot to be socially accepted and to generate empathy between humans and robotic machines. Social etiquette in human-robot systems will be sought through the study of human behavior. At the initial stage of this ambitious research project, the virtual reality cave at Beckman Institute and the motion capture suite at CSL Intelligent Robotic Lab will serve as testing and validation environment to derive robots' design features and behavioral protocols toward the development of these robots. The outcome of this first step will provide the basis for further research in the field and will contribute to the sociotechnical society of the future.