Related papers: Robots that Learn to Safely Influence via Predicti…

Previous humanoid robot research works treat the robot as a bipedal mobile manipulation platform, where only the feet and hands contact the environment. However, we humans use all body parts to interact with the world, e.g., we sit in…

As autonomous vehicles (AVs) become increasingly prevalent, their interaction with human drivers presents a critical challenge. Current AVs lack social awareness, causing behavior that is often awkward or unsafe. To combat this, social AVs,…

Autonomous agents (robots) face tremendous challenges while interacting with heterogeneous human agents in close proximity. One of these challenges is that the autonomous agent does not have an accurate model tailored to the specific human…

The intuitive collaboration of humans and intelligent robots (embodied AI) in the real-world is an essential objective for many desirable applications of robotics. Whilst there is much research regarding explicit communication, we focus on…

Much work in robotics has focused on "human-in-the-loop" learning techniques that improve the efficiency of the learning process. However, these algorithms have made the strong assumption of a cooperating human supervisor that assists the…

Safety, reliability, and user trust are crucial in human-robot interaction (HRI) where the robots must address hazards in real-time. This study presents hazard driven low-level control strategies implemented in robot-assisted dressing (RAD)…

We treat the problem of autonomous acquisition of manipulation skills where problem-solving strategies are initially available only for a narrow range of situations. We propose to extend the range of solvable situations by autonomous…

Safety is a crucial property of every robotic platform: any control policy should always comply with actuator limits and avoid collisions with the environment and humans. In reinforcement learning, safety is even more fundamental for…

Tactile interaction plays a crucial role in interactions between people. Touch can, for example, help people calm down and lower physiological stress responses. Consequently, it is believed that tactile and haptic interaction matter also in…

Unthinking execution of human instructions in robotic manipulation can lead to severe safety risks, such as poisonings, fires, and even explosions. In this paper, we present responsible robotic manipulation, which requires robots to…

Goal-conditioned policies, such as those learned via imitation learning, provide an easy way for humans to influence what tasks robots accomplish. However, these robot policies are not guaranteed to execute safely or to succeed when faced…

Autonomous vehicles with a self-evolving ability are expected to cope with unknown scenarios in the real-world environment. Take advantage of trial and error mechanism, reinforcement learning is able to self evolve by learning the optimal…

The increasing presence of robots alongside humans, such as in human-robot teams in manufacturing, gives rise to research questions about the kind of behaviors people prefer in their robot counterparts. We term actions that support…

A motion-based control interface promises flexible robot operations in dangerous environments by combining user intuitions with the robot's motor capabilities. However, designing a motion interface for non-humanoid robots, such as…

With robots leaving factories and entering less controlled domains, possibly sharing the space with humans, safety is paramount and multimodal awareness of the body surface and the surrounding environment is fundamental. Taking inspiration…

Humans are constantly influenced by others' behavior and opinions. Of importance, social influence among humans is shaped by reciprocity: we follow more the advice of someone who has been taking into consideration our opinions. In the…

We study the class of reach-avoid dynamic games in which multiple agents interact noncooperatively, and each wishes to satisfy a distinct target criterion while avoiding a failure criterion. Reach-avoid games are commonly used to express…

Robot manipulation is an important part of human-robot interaction technology. However, traditional pre-programmed methods can only accomplish simple and repetitive tasks. To enable effective communication between robots and humans, and to…

In dynamic environments, robots often encounter constrained movement trajectories when manipulating objects with specific properties, such as doors. Therefore, applying the appropriate force is crucial to prevent damage to both the robots…

Assistive robots enable people with disabilities to conduct everyday tasks on their own. However, these tasks can be complex, containing both coarse reaching motions and fine-grained manipulation. For example, when eating, not only does one…