Spotting the Unfriendly Robot -- Towards better Metrics for Interactions

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wenzel, Raphael, Probst, Malte
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916952098734080
author Wenzel, Raphael
Probst, Malte
author_facet Wenzel, Raphael
Probst, Malte
contents Establishing standardized metrics for Social Robot Navigation (SRN) algorithms for assessing the quality and social compliance of robot behavior around humans is essential for SRN research. Currently, commonly used evaluation metrics lack the ability to quantify how cooperative an agent behaves in interaction with humans. Concretely, in a simple frontal approach scenario, no metric specifically captures if both agents cooperate or if one agent stays on collision course and the other agent is forced to evade. To address this limitation, we propose two new metrics, a conflict intensity metric and the responsibility metric. Together, these metrics are capable of evaluating the quality of human-robot interactions by showing how much a given algorithm has contributed to reducing a conflict and which agent actually took responsibility of the resolution. This work aims to contribute to the development of a comprehensive and standardized evaluation methodology for SRN, ultimately enhancing the safety, efficiency, and social acceptance of robots in human-centric environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_12912
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spotting the Unfriendly Robot -- Towards better Metrics for Interactions
Wenzel, Raphael
Probst, Malte
Robotics
Establishing standardized metrics for Social Robot Navigation (SRN) algorithms for assessing the quality and social compliance of robot behavior around humans is essential for SRN research. Currently, commonly used evaluation metrics lack the ability to quantify how cooperative an agent behaves in interaction with humans. Concretely, in a simple frontal approach scenario, no metric specifically captures if both agents cooperate or if one agent stays on collision course and the other agent is forced to evade. To address this limitation, we propose two new metrics, a conflict intensity metric and the responsibility metric. Together, these metrics are capable of evaluating the quality of human-robot interactions by showing how much a given algorithm has contributed to reducing a conflict and which agent actually took responsibility of the resolution. This work aims to contribute to the development of a comprehensive and standardized evaluation methodology for SRN, ultimately enhancing the safety, efficiency, and social acceptance of robots in human-centric environments.
title Spotting the Unfriendly Robot -- Towards better Metrics for Interactions
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12912