Research – Human Robot Interaction (HRI)
Communicative Gesture
Summary:
The effectiveness of nonverbal gestures as human-robot communication mechanisms has previously been validated in HRI literature. Previous studies have shown that particular humanlike gestures used by a robot can be communicative to its observers.
The purpose of my project is to evaluate humanlike gestures as a communication medium in human-robot interaction in the context of vehicle assembly. In this study, we are investigating the impact of such robot-generated gestures in a human-robot collaboration scenario.
We have investigated and categorized human arm motions required for a vehicle door assembly task. We have then implemented these communicative gestures on a 7 DoF Barrett WAM arm and designed an experiment in which humans collaborate with the WAM arm in real-time. The knowledge gained from this study will be used to develop robots capable of understanding the natural human communication cues, effectively communicating with humans, and responding safely.
