CAREER: Closing the Loop between Learning and Communication for Assistive Robot Arms

由该学院早期职业发展计划(Career)奖资助的研究旨在将人类和机器人之间的双向交流正式化为一个闭环系统。这项研究的灵感来自于对辅助机器人的需求，这些机器人可以帮助老年人和残疾人执行日常任务。关键的挑战在于促进人类和机器人之间的无缝和安全互动。当人们依赖辅助机器人时，他们需要学习用户想要什么(即机器人理解人类)并清楚地传达他们的意图(即人类理解机器人)的机器人。研究团队将开发硬件和软件工具，通过视觉、听觉和触觉界面促进机器人和人类之间的交流。该项目还将通过以下方式支持机器人教育：i)教聋哑人和盲人高中生建立与辅助机器人手臂通信的接口；ii)指导大学高年级学生编写测试统一框架限制的“学习与分享”机器人程序；iii)让传统包容性小组之外的工程学教师进入安全的空间，讨论他们的旅程。推动这项研究的洞察力是，有效的沟通告知学习，反之亦然。拥有机器人学习知识的用户提高了他们操作机器人的能力，而机器人的学习决定了它应该通信什么。考虑到这一见解，与这一职业奖项相关的研究有三个主要目标：(从人类到机器人)学习以稳健和直观地帮助人类，(从机器人到人类)通过个性化和可解释的反馈来交流机器人的学习，以及(共同适应)在允许机器人和人类互动和适应的单一、相互关联的动态系统下统一学习和交流。用户研究将评估这些贡献，参与者将在日常生活活动中控制机械臂。在统一的形式主义中，学习和交流是同一数学框架的两个组成部分，这是主要的科学贡献。通过将这些要素结合起来，该项目超越了学习和交流的单独发展轨道的限制，以以前无法实现的方式促进知识的发展。该项目的教育和推广计划补充了这些研究目标，并教导下一代工程师深入考虑用户如何理解和共同适应新的自主技术。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Research funded by this Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award intends to formalize bidirectional exchange between humans and robots as a closed-loop dynamical system. The research is inspired by the need for assistive robots that help elderly and disabled adults perform everyday tasks. The crucial challenge lies in fostering seamless and safe interaction between humans and robots. When people rely on assistive robots, they need robots that learn what the user wants (i.e., the robot understands the human) and clearly communicate their intent (i.e., the human understands the robot). The investigator's team will develop hardware and software tools to facilitate communication between robots and humans through visual, auditory, and haptic interfaces. This project will also support robotics education by i) teaching deaf and blind high school students to build interfaces that communicate with assistive robot arms; ii) mentoring college seniors as they program "learn & share" robots that test the limits of the unified framework; and by iii) bringing engineering faculty outside of traditional inclusion groups into a safe space to discuss their journeys. The insight driving this research is that effective communication informs learning and vice versa. Users with knowledge about their robot's learning enhance their ability to operate it, while the robot's learning dictates what it should communicate. With this insight in mind, research performed in association with this CAREER award has three main objectives: (from human to robot) learning to assist the human robustly and intuitively, (from robot to human) communicating robot learning with personalized and interpretable feedback, and (co-adaptation) unifying learning and communication under a single, interconnected dynamical system that allows the robot and the human to interact and adapt. User studies will evaluate these contributions, involving participants controlling a robot arm in daily living activities. A unified formalism where learning and communication are two components of the same mathematical framework is the main scientific contribution. By combining these elements, the project transcends the limitations of separate development tracks for learning and communication, advancing knowledge in previously unattainable ways. The project's educational and outreach plan complements these research objectives and teaches the next generation of engineers to deeply consider how users understand and co-adapt to new autonomous technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.