Related papers: Should Social Robots in Retail Manipulate Customer…
Autonomous robots in unstructured and dynamically changing retail environments have to master complex perception, knowledgeprocessing, and manipulation tasks. To enable them to act competently, we propose a framework based on three core…
Driven by ongoing improvements in machine learning, chatbots have increasingly grown from experimental interface prototypes to reliable and robust tools for process automation. Building on these advances, companies have identified various…
The number of tools for dynamics simulation has grown in the last years. It is necessary for the robotics community to have elements to ponder which of the available tools is the best for their research. As a complement to an objective and…
As humanoid service robots are becoming more and more perceptible in public service settings for instance as a guide to welcome visitors or to explain a procedure to follow, it is desirable to improve the comprehensibility of complex issues…
Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT) has successfully been used in Human Robot Interaction (HRI) research by including social robots in health-care interventions by virtue of their ability to engage human users in both social and emotional…
The adoption of Reinforcement Learning (RL) in several human-centred applications provides robots with autonomous decision-making capabilities and adaptability based on the observations of the operating environment. In such scenarios,…
Conversational recommender systems offer the promise of interactive, engaging ways for users to find items they enjoy. We seek to improve conversational recommendation via three dimensions: 1) We aim to mimic a common mode of human…
This study investigates whether the opinions of robotic agents can influence human decision-making when robots display value awareness (i.e., the capability of understanding human preferences and prioritizing them in decision-making). We…
Intelligent systems are increasingly part of our everyday lives and have been integrated seamlessly to the point where it is difficult to imagine a world without them. Physical manifestations of those systems on the other hand, in the form…
Social communication between people and social robots has been studied extensively and found to have various notable benefits, including the enhancement of human-robot team cohesion and the development of rapport and trust. However, the…
Goal-oriented conversational agents are becoming prevalent in our daily lives. For these systems to engage users and achieve their goals, they need to exhibit appropriate social behavior as well as provide informative replies that guide…
The migration of robots from the laboratory into sensitive home settings as commercially available therapeutic agents represents a significant transition for information privacy and ethical imperatives. We present new privacy paradigms and…
The integration of artificial intelligence, especially large language models in robotics, has led to rapid advancements in the field. We are now observing an unprecedented surge in the use of robots in our daily lives. The development and…
Motivated by recent challenges in the deployment of robots into customer-facing roles within retail, this work introduces a study of customer activity in physical stores as a step toward autonomous understanding of shopper intent. We…
Robots and artificial machines have been captivating the public for centuries, depicted first as threats to humanity, then as subordinates and helpers. In the last decade, the booming exposure of humans to robots has fostered an increasing…
In this work, we analyze video data and interviews from a public deployment of two trash barrel robots in a large public space to better understand the sensemaking activities people perform when they encounter robots in public spaces. Based…
Recent works introduce general-purpose robot policies. These policies provide a strong prior over how robots should behave -- e.g., how a robot arm should manipulate food items. But in order for robots to match an individual person's needs,…
The paper reports an empirical study of the effect of human treatment of a robot on the social perception of the robot's behavior. The study employed an enacted interaction between an anthropomorphic "waiter" robot and two customers. The…
The actions of intelligent agents, such as chatbots, recommender systems, and virtual assistants are typically not fully transparent to the user. Consequently, using such an agent involves the user exposing themselves to the risk that the…
A recent study by the Robotic Industries Association has highlighted how service robots are increasingly broadening our horizons beyond the factory floor. From robotic vacuums, bomb retrievers, exoskeletons and drones, to robots used in…