Related papers: Social Zone as a Barrier Function for Socially-Com…
Social, also called human-aware, navigation is a key challenge for the integration of mobile robots into human environments. The evaluation of such systems is complex, as factors such as comfort, safety, and legibility must be considered.…
As drones and autonomous cars become more widespread it is becoming increasingly important that robots can operate safely under realistic conditions. The noisy information fed into real systems means that robots must use estimates of the…
Multi-robot collaboration for target tracking in adversarial environments poses significant challenges, including system failures, dynamic priority shifts, and other unpredictable factors. These challenges become even more pronounced when…
This work proposes a novel transformation termed the conformal navigation transformation to achieve collision-free navigation of a robot in a workspace populated with arbitrary polygonal obstacles. The properties of the conformal navigation…
In this paper, we develop a control framework for the coordination of multiple robots as they navigate through crowded environments. Our framework comprises of a local model predictive control (MPC) for each robot and a social long…
Emerging applications of robotics, and concerns about their impact, require the research community to put human-centric objectives front-and-center. To meet this challenge, we advocate an interdisciplinary approach, socially cognizant…
An important factor in developing control models for human-robot collaboration is how acceptable they are to their human partners. One such method for creating acceptable control models is to attempt to mimic human-like behaviour in robots…
We present a context classification pipeline to allow a robot to change its navigation strategy based on the observed social scenario. Socially-Aware Navigation considers social behavior in order to improve navigation around people. Most of…
Socially compliant navigation requires robots to move safely and appropriately in human-centered environments by respecting social norms. However, social norms are often ambiguous, and in a single scenario, multiple actions may be equally…
Navigation in human-robot shared crowded environments remains challenging, as robots are expected to move efficiently while respecting human motion conventions. However, many existing approaches emphasize safety or efficiency while…
Integrating mobile robots into human society involves the fundamental problem of navigation in crowds. This problem has been studied by considering the behaviour of humans at the level of individuals, but this representation limits the…
In this paper, we present a robotic navigation algorithm with natural language interfaces, which enables a robot to safely walk through a changing environment with moving persons by following human instructions such as "go to the restaurant…
We aim to enable a mobile robot to navigate through environments with dense crowds, e.g., shopping malls, canteens, train stations, or airport terminals. In these challenging environments, existing approaches suffer from two common…
{Recognizing human interactions is essential for social robots as it enables them to navigate safely and naturally in shared environments. Conventional robotic systems however often focus on obstacle avoidance, neglecting social cues…
In social robot navigation, traditional metrics like proxemics and behavior naturalness emphasize human comfort and adherence to social norms but often fail to capture an agent's autonomy and adaptability in dynamic environments. This paper…
Human navigation in built environments depends on symbolic spatial information which has unrealised potential to enhance robot navigation capabilities. Information sources such as labels, signs, maps, planners, spoken directions, and…
Teaching autonomous mobile robots to successfully navigate human crowds is a challenging task. Not only does it require planning, but it requires maintaining social norms which may differ from one context to another. Here we focus on crowd…
Research in social robotics is commonly focused on designing robots that imitate human behavior. While this might increase a user's satisfaction and acceptance of robots at first glance, it does not automatically aid a non-expert user in…
This paper presents the framework for a novel Unified Socially-Aware Navigation (USAN) architecture and explains its need in Socially Assistive Robotics (SAR) applications. Our approach emphasizes interpersonal distance and how spatial…
Nowadays, robots are expected to interact more physically, cognitively, and socially with people. They should adapt to unpredictable contexts alongside individuals with various behaviours. For this reason, personalisation is a valuable…