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This paper considers the problem of distributed state estimation using multi-robot systems. The robots have limited communication capabilities and, therefore, communicate their measurements intermittently only when they are physically close…

Family-school partnerships (FSP) are critical to children's development, yet families often face barriers such as time constraints, fragmented communication, and limited opportunities for meaningful engagement. As a step toward facilitating…

A remote collaboration setup allows an expert to instruct a remotely located novice user to help them with a task. Advanced solutions exist in the field of remote guidance and telemanipulation, however, we lack a device that combines these…

For a robot to be called socially intelligent, it must be able to infer users internal states from their current behaviour, predict the users future behaviour, and if required, respond appropriately. In this work, we investigate how robots…

Group processes refer to the dynamics that occur within a group and are critical for understanding how groups function. With robots being increasingly placed within small groups, improving these processes has emerged as an important…

Expressivity--the use of multiple modalities to convey internal state and intent of a robot--is critical for interaction. Yet, due to cost, safety, and other constraints, many robots lack high degrees of physical expressivity. This paper…

From learning assistance to companionship, social robots promise to enhance many aspects of daily life. However, social robots have not seen widespread adoption, in part because (1) they do not adapt their behavior to new users, and (2)…

This paper addresses the problem of active information gathering for multi-robot systems. Specifically, we consider scenarios where robots are tasked with reducing uncertainty of dynamical hidden states evolving in complex environments. The…

Effective collaboration between embodied agents requires more than acting in a shared environment; it demands communication grounded in each agent's evolving understanding of the world. When agents can only partially observe their…

Explainable robots require not only successful task execution but also the ability to expose internal decision-making process in a user-friendly manner. However, most imitation learning methods are trained solely on task-level…

State estimation is a fundamental requirement in robotics, where the accurate determination of a robot's state is essential for stable operation despite inherent process disturbances and sensor noise. Traditionally, this is achieved through…

Most existing embodied intelligence methods formulate perception, reasoning, planning, and control within a unified parameterized policy. Yet these capabilities are inherently hierarchical and heterogeneous, making them difficult to…

Loneliness and stress are prevalent among young adults and are linked to significant psychological and health-related consequences. Social robots may offer a promising avenue for emotional support, especially when considering the ongoing…

Corrective Shared Autonomy is a method where human corrections are layered on top of an otherwise autonomous robot behavior. Specifically, a Corrective Shared Autonomy system leverages an external controller to allow corrections across a…

Despite living in an increasingly connected world, social isolation is a prevalent issue today. While social robots have been explored as tools to enhance social connection through companionship, their potential as asynchronous social…

In peer mediation--an approach to conflict resolution used in many K-12 schools in the United States--students help other students to resolve conflicts. For schools without peer mediation programs, socially assistive robots (SARs) may be…

Social robots have emerged as valuable contributors to individuals' well-being coaching. Notably, their integration into long-term human coaching trials shows particular promise, emphasizing a complementary role alongside human coaches…

In this work, we investigate how spatially grounded auxiliary representations can provide both broad, high-level grounding as well as direct, actionable information to improve policy learning performance and generalization for dexterous…

While trust in human-robot interaction is increasingly recognized as necessary for the implementation of social robots, our understanding of regulating trust in human-robot interaction is yet limited. In the current experiment, we evaluated…

COVID-19 pandemic has become a global challenge faced by people all over the world. Social distancing has been proved to be an effective practice to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Against this backdrop, we propose that the surveillance…