Related papers: Learning and Blending Robot Hugging Behaviors in T…
Musculoskeletal robots that are based on pneumatic actuation have a variety of properties, such as compliance and back-drivability, that render them particularly appealing for human-robot collaboration. However, programming interactive and…
In this paper, we discuss a framework for teaching bimanual manipulation tasks by imitation. To this end, we present a system and algorithms for learning compliant and contact-rich robot behavior from human demonstrations. The presented…
Human-robot interaction benefits greatly from multimodal sensor inputs as they enable increased robustness and generalization accuracy. Despite this observation, few HRI methods are capable of efficiently performing inference for multimodal…
A hug is a tight embrace and an expression of warmth, sympathy and camaraderie. Despite the fact that a hug often only takes a few seconds, it is filled with details and nuances and is a highly complex process of coordination between two…
Hugs are complex affective interactions that often include gestures like squeezes. We present six new guidelines for designing interactive hugging robots, which we validate through two studies with our custom robot. To achieve autonomy, we…
To coordinate actions with an interaction partner requires a constant exchange of sensorimotor signals. Humans acquire these skills in infancy and early childhood mostly by imitation learning and active engagement with a skilled partner.…
This article presents a method for learning well-coordinated Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) from Human-Human Interactions (HHI). We devise a hybrid approach using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) as the latent space priors for a Variational…
Robots are required to autonomously respond to changing situations. Imitation learning is a promising candidate for achieving generalization performance, and extensive results have been demonstrated in object manipulation. However,…
For effective human-agent teaming, robots and other artificial intelligence (AI) agents must infer their human partner's abilities and behavioral response patterns and adapt accordingly. Most prior works make the unrealistic assumption that…
Learning physical interaction skills, such as dancing, handshaking, or sparring, remains a fundamental challenge for agents operating in human environments, particularly when the agent's morphology differs significantly from that of the…
Fluent human--robot collaboration requires robots to continuously estimate human behaviour and anticipate future intentions. This entails reasoning jointly about \emph{continuous movements} and \emph{discrete actions}, which are still…
Recent progress in human-robot collaboration makes fast and fluid interactions possible, even when human observations are partial and occluded. Methods like Interaction Probabilistic Movement Primitives (ProMP) model human trajectories…
The combination of collaborative robots and end-to-end AI, promises flexible automation of human tasks in factories and warehouses. However, such promise seems a few breakthroughs away. In the meantime, humans and cobots will collaborate…
Sample efficient learning of manipulation skills poses a major challenge in robotics. While recent approaches demonstrate impressive advances in the type of task that can be addressed and the sensing modalities that can be incorporated,…
Physical human-robot interaction can improve human ergonomics, task efficiency, and the flexibility of automation, but often requires application-specific methods to detect human state and determine robot response. At the same time, many…
Despite the advancement in robotic grasping and dexterity through haptic information, affective social touch, such as handshaking or reassuring stroking, remains a major challenge in Human-Robot-Interaction. This position paper examines…
Human-robot collaboration is on the rise. Robots need to increasingly improve the efficiency and smoothness with which they assist humans by properly anticipating a human's intention. To do so, prediction models need to increase their…
With the introduction of collaborative robots, humans and robots can now work together in close proximity and share the same workspace. However, this collaboration presents various challenges that need to be addressed to ensure seamless…
Learning from human demonstration is an effective approach for learning complex manipulation skills. However, existing approaches heavily focus on learning from passive human demonstration data for its simplicity in data collection.…
Robots which interact with the physical world will benefit from a fine-grained tactile understanding of objects and surfaces. Additionally, for certain tasks, robots may need to know the haptic properties of an object before touching it. To…