TailCue: Exploring Animal-inspired Robotic Tail for Automated Vehicles Interaction

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Li, Yuan, Gui, Xinyue, Xia, Ding, Colley, Mark, Igarashi, Takeo
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Li, Yuan
Gui, Xinyue
Xia, Ding
Colley, Mark
Igarashi, Takeo
author_facet Li, Yuan
Gui, Xinyue
Xia, Ding
Colley, Mark
Igarashi, Takeo
contents Automated vehicles (AVs) are gradually becoming part of our daily lives. However, effective communication between road users and AVs remains a significant challenge. Although various external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) have been developed to facilitate interactions, psychological factors, such as a lack of trust and inadequate emotional signaling, may still deter users from confidently engaging with AVs in certain contexts. To address this gap, we propose TailCue, an exploration of how tail-based eHMIs affect user interaction with AVs. We first investigated mappings between tail movements and emotional expressions from robotics and zoology, and accordingly developed a motion-emotion mapping scheme. A physical robotic tail was implemented, and specific tail motions were designed based on our scheme. An online, video-based user study with 21 participants was conducted. Our findings suggest that, although the intended emotions conveyed by the tail were not consistently recognized, open-ended feedback indicated that the tail motion needs to align with the scenarios and cues. Our result highlights the necessity of scenario-specific optimization to enhance tail-based eHMIs. Future work will refine tail movement strategies to maximize their effectiveness across diverse interaction contexts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_14242
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle TailCue: Exploring Animal-inspired Robotic Tail for Automated Vehicles Interaction
Li, Yuan
Gui, Xinyue
Xia, Ding
Colley, Mark
Igarashi, Takeo
Human-Computer Interaction
Automated vehicles (AVs) are gradually becoming part of our daily lives. However, effective communication between road users and AVs remains a significant challenge. Although various external human-machine interfaces (eHMIs) have been developed to facilitate interactions, psychological factors, such as a lack of trust and inadequate emotional signaling, may still deter users from confidently engaging with AVs in certain contexts. To address this gap, we propose TailCue, an exploration of how tail-based eHMIs affect user interaction with AVs. We first investigated mappings between tail movements and emotional expressions from robotics and zoology, and accordingly developed a motion-emotion mapping scheme. A physical robotic tail was implemented, and specific tail motions were designed based on our scheme. An online, video-based user study with 21 participants was conducted. Our findings suggest that, although the intended emotions conveyed by the tail were not consistently recognized, open-ended feedback indicated that the tail motion needs to align with the scenarios and cues. Our result highlights the necessity of scenario-specific optimization to enhance tail-based eHMIs. Future work will refine tail movement strategies to maximize their effectiveness across diverse interaction contexts.
title TailCue: Exploring Animal-inspired Robotic Tail for Automated Vehicles Interaction
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14242