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We focus on the problem of how we can enable a robot to collaborate seamlessly with a human partner, specifically in scenarios where preexisting data is sparse. Much prior work in human-robot collaboration uses observational models of…
Deep learning's success in perception, natural language processing, etc. inspires hopes for advancements in autonomous robotics. However, real-world robotics face challenges like variability, high-dimensional state spaces, non-linear…
This paper addresses the problem of detecting possible intruders in a group of autonomous robots, which coexist in a shared environment and interact with each other according to a set of "social behaviors", or common rules. Such rules…
As in any interaction process, misunderstandings, ambiguity, and failures to correctly understand the interaction partner are bound to happen in human-robot interaction. We term these failures 'conflicts' and are interested in both conflict…
Robots are increasingly being deployed in public spaces. However, the general population rarely has the opportunity to nominate what they would prefer or expect a robot to do in these contexts. Since most people have little or no experience…
Existing household robots have made significant progress in performing routine tasks, such as cleaning floors or delivering objects. However, a key limitation of these robots is their inability to recognize potential problems or dangers in…
In order to enable physical human-robot interaction where humans and (mobile) manipulators share their workspace and work together, robots have to be equipped with important capabilities to guarantee human safety. The robots have to…
To enhance human-robot social interaction, it is essential for robots to process multiple social cues in a complex real-world environment. However, incongruency of input information across modalities is inevitable and could be challenging…
Socially Assistive Robots navigate highly sensible environments, which place high demands on safety and communication with users. The reasoning behind an SAR's actions must be transparent at any time to earn users' trust and acceptance.…
Understanding how people interact with their surroundings and each other is essential for enabling robots to act in socially compliant and context-aware ways. While 3D Scene Graphs have emerged as a powerful semantic representation for…
Social robot navigation algorithms are often demonstrated in overly simplified scenarios, prohibiting the extraction of practical insights about their relevance to real-world domains. Our key insight is that an understanding of the inherent…
Current robots are capable of computing plans to accomplish complex tasks. However, real-world environments are inherently open and dynamic, and unforeseen situations frequently arise during plan execution, such as jamming doors and fallen…
Social robots are increasingly recognized as valuable supporters in the field of well-being coaching. They can function as independent coaches or provide support alongside human coaches, and healthcare professionals. In coaching…
We are considering the problem of controlling a team of robotic bodyguards protecting a VIP from physical assault in the presence of neutral and/or adversarial bystanders. This task is part of a much larger class of problems involving…
As robotic systems become more and more capable of assisting humans in their everyday lives, we must consider the opportunities for these artificial agents to make their human collaborators feel unsafe or to treat them unfairly. Robots can…
Robots in our daily surroundings are increasing day by day. Their usability and acceptability largely depend on their explicit and implicit interaction capability with fellow human beings. As a result, social behavior is one of the most…
When robots share the same workspace with other intelligent agents (e.g., other robots or humans), they must be able to reason about the behaviors of their neighboring agents while accomplishing the designated tasks. In practice,…
Sociability is essential for modern robots to increase their acceptability in human environments. Traditional techniques use manually engineered utility functions inspired by observing pedestrian behaviors to achieve social navigation.…
Autonomous robots must communicate about their decisions to gain trust and acceptance. When doing so, robots must determine which actions are causal, i.e., which directly give rise to the desired outcome, so that these actions can be…
Equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced sensing capabilities, social robots are gaining interest among consumers in the United States. These robots seem like a natural evolution of traditional smart home devices. However,…