arXiv subjects

Bilge Mutlu

Publications and source records attributed to Bilge Mutlu.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Crowdsourcing Task Traces for Service Robotics

Demonstration is an effective end-user development paradigm for teaching robots how to perform new tasks. In this paper, we posit that demonstration is useful not only as a teaching tool, but also as a way to understand and assist end-user developers in thinking about a task at hand. As a first step toward gaining this understanding, we constructed a lightweight web interface to crowdsource step-by-step instructions of common household tasks, leveraging the imaginations and past experiences of potential end-user developers. As evidence of the utility of our interface, we deployed the interface on Amazon Mechanical Turk and collected 207 task traces that span 18 different task categories. We describe our vision for how these task traces can be operationalized as task models within end-user development tools and provide a roadmap for future work.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

"It's Not a Replacement:" Enabling Parent-Robot Collaboration to Support In-Home Learning Experiences of Young Children

Learning companion robots for young children are increasingly adopted in informal learning environments. Although parents play a pivotal role in their children's learning, very little is known about how parents prefer to incorporate robots into their children's learning activities. We developed prototype capabilities for a learning companion robot to deliver educational prompts and responses to parent-child pairs during reading sessions and conducted in-home user studies involving 10 families with children aged 3-5. Our data indicates that parents want to work with robots as collaborators to augment parental activities to foster children's learning, introducing the notion of parent-robot collaboration. Our findings offer an empirical understanding of the needs and challenges of parent-child interaction in informal learning scenarios and design opportunities for integrating a companion robot into these interactions. We offer insights into how robots might be designed to facilitate parent-robot collaboration, including parenting policies, collaboration patterns, and interaction paradigms.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Factors that Affect Personalization of Robots for Older Adults

We introduce a taxonomy of important factors to consider when designing interactions with an assistive robot in a senior living facility. These factors are derived from our reflection on two field studies and are grouped into the following high-level categories: primary user (residents), care partners, robot, facility and external circumstances. We outline how multiple factors in these categories impact different aspects of personalization, such as adjusting interactions based on the unique needs of a resident or modifying alerts about the robot's status for different care partners. This preliminary taxonomy serves as a framework for considering how to deploy personalized assistive robots in the complex caregiving ecosystem.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

End-User Development for Human-Robot Interaction

End-user development (EUD) represents a key step towards making robotics accessible for experts and nonexperts alike. Within academia, researchers investigate novel ways that EUD tools can capture, represent, visualize, analyze, and test developer intent. At the same time, industry researchers increasingly build and ship programming tools that enable customers to interact with their robots. However, despite this growing interest, the role of EUD within HRI is not well defined. EUD struggles to situate itself within a growing array of alternative approaches to application development, such as robot learning and teleoperation. EUD further struggles due to the wide range of individuals who can be considered end users, such as independent third-party application developers, consumers, hobbyists, or even employees of the robot manufacturer. Key questions remain such as how EUD is justified over alternate approaches to application development, which contexts EUD is most suited for, who the target users of an EUD system are, and where interaction between a human and a robot takes place, amongst many other questions. We seek to address these challenges and questions by organizing the first End-User Development for Human-Robot Interaction (EUD4HRI) workshop at the 2024 International Conference of Human-Robot Interaction. The workshop will bring together researchers with a wide range of expertise across academia and industry, spanning perspectives from multiple subfields of robotics, with the primary goal being a consensus of perspectives about the role that EUD must play within human-robot interaction.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Toward Family-Robot Interactions: A Family-Centered Framework in HRI

As robotic products become more integrated into daily life, there is a greater need to understand authentic and real-world human-robot interactions to inform product design. Across many domestic, educational, and public settings, robots interact with not only individuals and groups of users, but also families, including children, parents, relatives, and even pets. However, products developed to date and research in human-robot and child-robot interactions have focused on the interaction with their primary users, neglecting the complex and multifaceted interactions between family members and with the robot. There is a significant gap in knowledge, methods, and theories for how to design robots to support these interactions. To inform the design of robots that can support and enhance family life, this paper provides (1) a narrative review exemplifying the research gap and opportunities for family-robot interactions and (2) an actionable family-centered framework for research and practices in human-robot and child-robot interaction.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

A System for Human-Robot Teaming through End-User Programming and Shared Autonomy

Many industrial tasks-such as sanding, installing fasteners, and wire harnessing-are difficult to automate due to task complexity and variability. We instead investigate deploying robots in an assistive role for these tasks, where the robot assumes the physical task burden and the skilled worker provides both the high-level task planning and low-level feedback necessary to effectively complete the task. In this article, we describe the development of a system for flexible human-robot teaming that combines state-of-the-art methods in end-user programming and shared autonomy and its implementation in sanding applications. We demonstrate the use of the system in two types of sanding tasks, situated in aircraft manufacturing, that highlight two potential workflows within the human-robot teaming setup. We conclude by discussing challenges and opportunities in human-robot teaming identified during the development, application, and demonstration of our system.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Sprout: Designing Expressivity for Robots Using Fiber-Embedded Actuator

In this paper, we explore how techniques from soft robotics can help create a new form of robot expression. We present Sprout, a soft expressive robot that conveys its internal states by changing its body shape. Sprout can extend, bend, twist, and expand using fiber-embedded actuators integrated into its construction. These deformations enable Sprout to express its internal states, for example, by expanding to express anger and bending its body sideways to express curiosity. Through two user studies, we investigated how users interpreted Sprout's expressions, their perceptions of Sprout, and their expectations from future iterations of Sprout's design. We argue that the use of soft actuators opens a novel design space for robot expressions to convey internal states, emotions, and intent.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Making Informed Decisions: Supporting Cobot Integration Considering Business and Worker Preferences

Robots are ubiquitous in small-to-large-scale manufacturers. While collaborative robots (cobots) have significant potential in these settings due to their flexibility and ease of use, proper integration is critical to realize their full potential. Specifically, cobots need to be integrated in ways that utilize their strengths, improve manufacturing performance, and facilitate use in concert with human workers. Effective integration requires careful consideration and the knowledge of roboticists, manufacturing engineers, and business administrators. We propose an approach involving the stages of planning, analysis, development, and presentation, to inform manufacturers about cobot integration within their facilities prior to the integration process. We contextualize our approach in a case study with an SME collaborator and discuss insights learned.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Understanding Large-Language Model (LLM)-powered Human-Robot Interaction

Large-language models (LLMs) hold significant promise in improving human-robot interaction, offering advanced conversational skills and versatility in managing diverse, open-ended user requests in various tasks and domains. Despite the potential to transform human-robot interaction, very little is known about the distinctive design requirements for utilizing LLMs in robots, which may differ from text and voice interaction and vary by task and context. To better understand these requirements, we conducted a user study (n = 32) comparing an LLM-powered social robot against text- and voice-based agents, analyzing task-based requirements in conversational tasks, including choose, generate, execute, and negotiate. Our findings show that LLM-powered robots elevate expectations for sophisticated non-verbal cues and excel in connection-building and deliberation, but fall short in logical communication and may induce anxiety. We provide design implications both for robots integrating LLMs and for fine-tuning LLMs for use with robots.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Coordinated Multi-Robot Shared Autonomy Based on Scheduling and Demonstrations

Shared autonomy methods, where a human operator and a robot arm work together, have enabled robots to complete a range of complex and highly variable tasks. Existing work primarily focuses on one human sharing autonomy with a single robot. By contrast, in this paper we present an approach for multi-robot shared autonomy that enables one operator to provide real-time corrections across two coordinated robots completing the same task in parallel. Sharing autonomy with multiple robots presents fundamental challenges. The human can only correct one robot at a time, and without coordination, the human may be left idle for long periods of time. Accordingly, we develop an approach that aligns the robot's learned motions to best utilize the human's expertise. Our key idea is to leverage Learning from Demonstration (LfD) and time warping to schedule the motions of the robots based on when they may require assistance. Our method uses variability in operator demonstrations to identify the types of corrections an operator might apply during shared autonomy, leverages flexibility in how quickly the task was performed in demonstrations to aid in scheduling, and iteratively estimates the likelihood of when corrections may be needed to ensure that only one robot is completing an action requiring assistance. Through a preliminary study, we show that our method can decrease the scheduled time spent sanding by iteratively estimating the times when each robot could need assistance and generating an optimized schedule that allows the operator to provide corrections to each robot during these times.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Investigating the Day-to-Day Experiences of Users with Traumatic Brain Injury with Conversational Agents

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause cognitive, communication, and psychological challenges that profoundly limit independence in everyday life. Conversational Agents (CAs) can provide individuals with TBI with cognitive and communication support, although little is known about how they make use of CAs to address injury-related needs. In this study, we gave nine adults with TBI an at-home CA for four weeks to investigate use patterns, challenges, and design requirements, focusing particularly on injury-related use. The findings revealed significant gaps between the current capabilities of CAs and accessibility challenges faced by TBI users. We also identified 14 TBI-related activities that participants engaged in with CAs. We categorized those activities into four groups: mental health, cognitive activities, healthcare and rehabilitation, and routine activities. Design implications focus on accessibility improvements and functional designs of CAs that can better support the day-to-day needs of people with TBI.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Characterizing Barriers and Technology Needs in the Kitchen for Blind and Low Vision People

Cooking is a vital yet challenging activity for people with visual impairments (PVI). It involves tasks that can be dangerous or difficult without vision, such as handling a knife or adding a suitable amount of salt. A better understanding of these challenges can inform the design of technologies that mitigate safety hazards and improve the quality of the lives of PVI. Furthermore, there is a need to understand the effects of different visual abilities, including low vision and blindness, and the role of rehabilitation training where PVI learn cooking skills and assistive technologies. In this paper, we aim to comprehensively characterize PVI's challenges, strategies, and needs in the kitchen from the perspectives of both PVI and rehabilitation professionals. Through a contextual inquiry study, we observed 10 PVI, including six low vision and four blind participants, when they cooked dishes of their choices in their own kitchens. We then interviewed six rehabilitation professionals to explore their training strategies and technology recommendations. Our findings revealed the differences between low vision and blind people during cooking as well as the gaps between training and reality. We suggest improvements for rehabilitation training and distill design considerations for future assistive technology in the kitchen.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Periscope: A Robotic Camera System to Support Remote Physical Collaboration

We investigate how robotic camera systems can offer new capabilities to computer-supported cooperative work through the design, development, and evaluation of a prototype system called Periscope. With Periscope, a local worker completes manipulation tasks with guidance from a remote helper who observes the workspace through a camera mounted on a semi-autonomous robotic arm that is co-located with the worker. Our key insight is that the helper, the worker, and the robot should all share responsibility of the camera view--an approach we call shared camera control. Using this approach, we present a set of modes that distribute the control of the camera between the human collaborators and the autonomous robot depending on task needs. We demonstrate the system's utility and the promise of shared camera control through a preliminary study where 12 dyads collaboratively worked on assembly tasks. Finally, we discuss design and research implications of our work for future robotic camera systems that facilitate remote collaboration.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Exploring the Design Space of Extra-Linguistic Expression for Robots

In this paper, we explore the new design space of extra-linguistic cues inspired by graphical tropes used in graphic novels and animation to enhance the expressiveness of social robots. To achieve this, we identified a set of cues that can be used to generate expressions, including smoke/steam/fog, water droplets, and bubbles. We prototyped devices that can generate these fluid expressions for a robot and conducted design sessions where eight designers explored the use and utility of the cues in conveying the robot's internal states in various design scenarios. Our analysis of the 22 designs, the associated design justifications, and the interviews with designers revealed patterns in how each cue was used, how they were combined with nonverbal cues, and where the participants drew their inspiration from. These findings informed the design of an integrated module called EmoPack, which can be used to augment the expressive capabilities of any robot platform.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Handheld Haptic Device with Coupled Bidirectional Input

Handheld kinesthetic haptic interfaces can provide greater mobility and richer tactile information as compared to traditional grounded devices. In this paper, we introduce a new handheld haptic interface which takes input using bidirectional coupled finger flexion. We present the device design motivation and design details and experimentally evaluate its performance in terms of transparency and rendering bandwidth using a handheld prototype device. In addition, we assess the device's functional performance through a user study comparing the proposed device to a commonly used grounded input device in a set of targeting and tracking tasks.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2023

Knowing Who Knows What: Designing Socially Assistive Robots with Transactive Memory System

Transactive Memory System (TMS) is a group theory that describes how communication can enable the combination of individual minds into a group. While this theory has been extensively studied in human-human groups, it has not yet been formally applied to socially assistive robot design. We demonstrate how the three-phase TMS group communication process-which involves encoding, storage, and retrieval-can be leveraged to improve decision making in socially assistive robots with multiple stakeholders. By clearly defining how the robot is gaining information, storing and updating its memory, and retrieving information from its memory, we believe that socially assistive robots can make better decisions and provide more transparency behind their actions in the group context. Bringing communication theory to robot design can provide a clear framework to help robots integrate better into human-human group dynamics and thus improve their acceptance and use.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

Designing Parent-child-robot Interactions to Facilitate In-Home Parental Math Talk with Young Children

Parent-child interaction is critical for child development, yet parents may need guidance in some aspects of their engagement with their children. Current research on educational math robots focuses on child-robot interactions but falls short of including the parents and integrating the critical role they play in children's learning. We explore how educational robots can be designed to facilitate parent-child conversations, focusing on math talk, a predictor of later math ability in children. We prototyped capabilities for a social robot to support math talk via reading and play activities and conducted an exploratory Wizard-of-Oz in-home study for parent-child interactions facilitated by a robot. Our findings yield insights into how parents were inspired by the robot's prompts, their desired interaction styles and methods for the robot, and how they wanted to include the robot in the activities, leading to guidelines for the design of parent-child-robot interaction in educational contexts.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2023

Family Theories in Child-Robot Interactions: Understanding Families as a Whole for Child-Robot Interaction Design

In this work, we discuss a theoretically motivated family-centered design approach for child-robot interactions, adapted by Family Systems Theory (FST) and Family Ecological Model (FEM). Long-term engagement and acceptance of robots in the home is influenced by factors that surround the child and the family, such as child-sibling-parent relationships and family routines, rituals, and values. A family-centered approach to interaction design is essential when developing in-home technology for children, especially for social agents like robots with which they can form connections and relationships. We review related literature in family theories and connect it with child-robot interaction and child-computer interaction research. We present two case studies that exemplify how family theories, FST and FEM, can inform the integration of robots into homes, particularly research into child-robot and family-robot interaction. Finally, we pose five overarching recommendations for a family-centered design approach in child-robot interactions.

cs.HC↗