ImageInThat: Manipulating Images to Convey User Instructions to Robots

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Mahadevan, Karthik, Lewis, Blaine, Li, Jiannan, Mutlu, Bilge, Tang, Anthony, Grossman, Tovi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866916657799102464
author Mahadevan, Karthik
Lewis, Blaine
Li, Jiannan
Mutlu, Bilge
Tang, Anthony
Grossman, Tovi
author_facet Mahadevan, Karthik
Lewis, Blaine
Li, Jiannan
Mutlu, Bilge
Tang, Anthony
Grossman, Tovi
contents Foundation models are rapidly improving the capability of robots in performing everyday tasks autonomously such as meal preparation, yet robots will still need to be instructed by humans due to model performance, the difficulty of capturing user preferences, and the need for user agency. Robots can be instructed using various methods-natural language conveys immediate instructions but can be abstract or ambiguous, whereas end-user programming supports longer horizon tasks but interfaces face difficulties in capturing user intent. In this work, we propose using direct manipulation of images as an alternative paradigm to instruct robots, and introduce a specific instantiation called ImageInThat which allows users to perform direct manipulation on images in a timeline-style interface to generate robot instructions. Through a user study, we demonstrate the efficacy of ImageInThat to instruct robots in kitchen manipulation tasks, comparing it to a text-based natural language instruction method. The results show that participants were faster with ImageInThat and preferred to use it over the text-based method. Supplementary material including code can be found at: https://image-in-that.github.io/.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_15500
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ImageInThat: Manipulating Images to Convey User Instructions to Robots
Mahadevan, Karthik
Lewis, Blaine
Li, Jiannan
Mutlu, Bilge
Tang, Anthony
Grossman, Tovi
Human-Computer Interaction
Robotics
Foundation models are rapidly improving the capability of robots in performing everyday tasks autonomously such as meal preparation, yet robots will still need to be instructed by humans due to model performance, the difficulty of capturing user preferences, and the need for user agency. Robots can be instructed using various methods-natural language conveys immediate instructions but can be abstract or ambiguous, whereas end-user programming supports longer horizon tasks but interfaces face difficulties in capturing user intent. In this work, we propose using direct manipulation of images as an alternative paradigm to instruct robots, and introduce a specific instantiation called ImageInThat which allows users to perform direct manipulation on images in a timeline-style interface to generate robot instructions. Through a user study, we demonstrate the efficacy of ImageInThat to instruct robots in kitchen manipulation tasks, comparing it to a text-based natural language instruction method. The results show that participants were faster with ImageInThat and preferred to use it over the text-based method. Supplementary material including code can be found at: https://image-in-that.github.io/.
title ImageInThat: Manipulating Images to Convey User Instructions to Robots
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15500