Related papers: Safe Human-Interactive Control via Shielding
Trust in robots is widely believed to be imperative for the adoption of robots into people's daily lives. It is, therefore, understandable that the literature of the last few decades focuses on measuring how much people trust robots -- and…
The role of robots is expanding from tool to collaborator. Socially assistive robots (SARs) are an example of collaborative robots that assist humans in the real world. As robots enter our social sphere, unforeseen risks occur during…
Contact-rich tasks pose significant challenges for robotic systems due to inherent uncertainty, complex dynamics, and the high risk of damage during interaction. Recent advances in learning-based control have shown great potential in…
People who design, use, and are affected by autonomous artificially intelligent agents want to be able to \emph{trust} such agents -- that is, to know that these agents will perform correctly, to understand the reasoning behind their…
The deployment of robots in uncontrolled environments requires them to operate robustly under previously unseen scenarios, like irregular terrain and wind conditions. Unfortunately, while rigorous safety frameworks from robust optimal…
Autonomous vehicles often make complex decisions via machine learning-based predictive models applied to collected sensor data. While this combination of methods provides a foundation for real-time actions, self-driving behavior primarily…
As assistive and collaborative robots become more ubiquitous in the real-world, we need to develop interfaces and controllers that are safe for users to build trust and encourage adoption. In this Blue Sky paper, we discuss the need for…
High levels of robot autonomy are a common goal, but there is a significant risk that the greater the autonomy of the robot the lesser the autonomy of the human working with the robot. For vulnerable populations like older adults who…
It is well-known that a deep understanding of co-workers' behavior and preference is important for collaboration effectiveness. In this work, we present a method to accomplish smooth human-robot collaboration in close proximity by taking…
Robots are often shipped insecure and in some cases fully unprotected. The rationale behind is fourfold: first, defensive security mechanisms for robots are still on their early stages, not covering the complete threat landscape. Second,…
Current approaches in human-aware or social robot navigation address the humans that are visible to the robot. However, it is also important to address the possible emergences of humans to avoid shocks or surprises to humans and erratic…
Autonomous driving in complex traffic requires reasoning under uncertainty. Common approaches rely on prediction-based planning or risk-aware control, but these are typically treated in isolation, limiting their ability to capture the…
Mobile robotic systems are increasingly used in various work environments to support productivity. However, deploying robots in workplaces crowded by human workers and interacting with them results in safety challenges and concerns, namely…
Falling is an inherent risk of humanoid mobility. Maintaining stability is thus a primary safety focus in robot control and learning, yet no existing approach fully averts loss of balance. When instability does occur, prior work addresses…
When autonomous robots interact with humans, such as during autonomous driving, explicit safety guarantees are crucial in order to avoid potentially life-threatening accidents. Many data-driven methods have explored learning probabilistic…
This paper proposes a dynamic game formulation for cooperative human-robot navigation in shared workspaces with obstacles, where the human and robot jointly satisfy shared safety constraints while pursuing a common task. A key contribution…
The need to increase the flexibility of production lines is calling for robots to collaborate with human workers. However, existing interactive industrial robots only guarantee intrinsic safety (reduce collision impact), but not interactive…
As social robots become increasingly prevalent in day-to-day environments, they will participate in conversations and appropriately manage the information shared with them. However, little is known about how robots might appropriately…
Ttraditional safety engineering is coming to a turning point moving from deterministic, non-evolving systems operating in well-defined contexts to increasingly autonomous and learning-enabled AI systems which are acting in largely…
Human-robot collaboration (HRC) introduces significant safety challenges, particularly in protecting human operators working alongside collaborative robots (cobots). While current ISO standards emphasize risk assessment and hazard…