Related papers: SIM2VR: Towards Automated Biomechanical Testing in…
Humans excel at bimanual assembly tasks by adapting to rich tactile feedback -- a capability that remains difficult to replicate in robots through behavioral cloning alone, due to the suboptimality and limited diversity of human…
As large language models (LLMs) continue to improve in reasoning and decision-making, there is a growing need for realistic and interactive environments where their abilities can be rigorously evaluated. We present VirtualEnv, a…
Progress toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) faces significant bottlenecks, particularly in rigorously evaluating complex interactive systems and acquiring the vast interaction data needed for training adaptive agents. This paper…
Poor social skills in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are associated with reduced independence in daily life. Current interventions for improving the social skills of individuals with ASD fail to represent the complexity of real-life social…
Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being rapidly introduced into our lives. However, public misunderstanding and mistrust have become prominent issues hindering the acceptance of these driverless technologies. The primary objective of this study…
Being able to reproduce physical phenomena ranging from light interaction to contact mechanics, simulators are becoming increasingly useful in more and more application domains where real-world interaction or labeled data are difficult to…
While Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly employed for stress management, most applications rely heavily on audio-visual stimuli and overlook the therapeutic potential of squeezing engagement. To address this gap, we introduce VR Calm…
Explanations of an AI's function can assist human decision-makers, but the most useful explanation depends on the decision's context, referred to as the downstream task. User studies are necessary to determine the best explanations for each…
The Robotics community has started to heavily rely on increasingly realistic 3D simulators for large-scale training of robots on massive amounts of data. But once robots are deployed in the real world, the simulation gap, as well as changes…
As computer simulations progress to increasingly complex, non-linear, and three-dimensional systems and phenomena, intuitive and immediate visualization of their results is becoming crucial. While Virtual Reality (VR) and Natural User…
Current autonomous vehicle (AV) simulators are built to provide large-scale testing required to prove capabilities under varied conditions in controlled, repeatable fashion. However, they have certain failings including the need for user…
Sim-to-real gap has long posed a significant challenge for robot learning in simulation, preventing the deployment of learned models in the real world. Previous work has primarily focused on domain randomization and system identification to…
Research and development on conversational recommender systems (CRSs) critically depends on sound and reliable evaluation methodologies. However, the interactive nature of these systems poses significant challenges for automatic evaluation.…
This chapter explores the practice of conducting user research studies and design assessments in virtual reality (VR). An overview of key VR hardware and software tools is provided, including game engines, such as Unity and Unreal Engine.…
Every day life tasks can present significant challenges for neurodivergent individuals, particularly those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) who are characterized by specific sensitivities. This contribution describes a virtual reality…
We explore how humanoid robots can be repurposed as haptic media, extending beyond their conventional role as social, assistive, collaborative agents. To illustrate this approach, we implemented HumanoidTurk, taking a first step toward a…
Simulation is essential to validate autonomous driving systems. However, a simple simulation, even for an extremely high number of simulated miles or hours, is not sufficient. We need well-founded criteria showing that simulation does…
Human cognition significantly influences expressed behavior and is intrinsically tied to authentic personality traits. Personality assessment plays a pivotal role in various fields, including psychology, education, social media, etc.…
Tactile sensing is critical to fine-grained, contact-rich manipulation tasks, such as insertion and assembly. Prior research has shown the possibility of learning tactile-guided policy from teleoperated demonstration data. However, to…
Simulation agents are essential for designing and testing systems that interact with humans, such as autonomous vehicles (AVs). These agents serve various purposes, from benchmarking AV performance to stress-testing system limits, but all…