Expressing and Inferring Action Carefulness in Human-to-Robot Handovers

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Lastrico, Linda, Duarte, Nuno Ferreira, Carfì, Alessandro, Rea, Francesco, Sciutti, Alessandra, Mastrogiovanni, Fulvio, Santos-Victor, José
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Lastrico, Linda
Duarte, Nuno Ferreira
Carfì, Alessandro
Rea, Francesco
Sciutti, Alessandra
Mastrogiovanni, Fulvio
Santos-Victor, José
author_facet Lastrico, Linda
Duarte, Nuno Ferreira
Carfì, Alessandro
Rea, Francesco
Sciutti, Alessandra
Mastrogiovanni, Fulvio
Santos-Victor, José
contents Implicit communication plays such a crucial role during social exchanges that it must be considered for a good experience in human-robot interaction. This work addresses implicit communication associated with the detection of physical properties, transport, and manipulation of objects. We propose an ecological approach to infer object characteristics from subtle modulations of the natural kinematics occurring during human object manipulation. Similarly, we take inspiration from human strategies to shape robot movements to be communicative of the object properties while pursuing the action goals. In a realistic HRI scenario, participants handed over cups - filled with water or empty - to a robotic manipulator that sorted them. We implemented an online classifier to differentiate careful/not careful human movements, associated with the cups' content. We compared our proposed "expressive" controller, which modulates the movements according to the cup filling, against a neutral motion controller. Results show that human kinematics is adjusted during the task, as a function of the cup content, even in reach-to-grasp motion. Moreover, the carefulness during the handover of full cups can be reliably inferred online, well before action completion. Finally, although questionnaires did not reveal explicit preferences from participants, the expressive robot condition improved task efficiency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_00465
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Expressing and Inferring Action Carefulness in Human-to-Robot Handovers
Lastrico, Linda
Duarte, Nuno Ferreira
Carfì, Alessandro
Rea, Francesco
Sciutti, Alessandra
Mastrogiovanni, Fulvio
Santos-Victor, José
Robotics
Implicit communication plays such a crucial role during social exchanges that it must be considered for a good experience in human-robot interaction. This work addresses implicit communication associated with the detection of physical properties, transport, and manipulation of objects. We propose an ecological approach to infer object characteristics from subtle modulations of the natural kinematics occurring during human object manipulation. Similarly, we take inspiration from human strategies to shape robot movements to be communicative of the object properties while pursuing the action goals. In a realistic HRI scenario, participants handed over cups - filled with water or empty - to a robotic manipulator that sorted them. We implemented an online classifier to differentiate careful/not careful human movements, associated with the cups' content. We compared our proposed "expressive" controller, which modulates the movements according to the cup filling, against a neutral motion controller. Results show that human kinematics is adjusted during the task, as a function of the cup content, even in reach-to-grasp motion. Moreover, the carefulness during the handover of full cups can be reliably inferred online, well before action completion. Finally, although questionnaires did not reveal explicit preferences from participants, the expressive robot condition improved task efficiency.
title Expressing and Inferring Action Carefulness in Human-to-Robot Handovers
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.00465