Identifying Approaching Behavior of a Person During a Conversation: A Human Study for Improving Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Development of intelligent service robots is a growing research area within the field of robotics. Users of these service robots expect human-like interaction abilities from the robots. These service robots must be capable of navigating in human populated environments by considering the comfort of the people for having smooth interaction with the users since many of the daily routine tasks involve the navigation. Therefore, a robot's way of approaching to users during interactions must be human-friendly in order to enhance the rapport between the human users and the robot. However, the natural approaching behavior of humans has to be studied in order to implement such human-like navigation abilities in service robots. Therefore, this paper contributes in a human study conducted for identifying the approaching behavior of a third person toward two persons who are having a conversation. The study has been conducted as three sub studies to identify the parameters that alter the approaching behavior. The key aspects of the approaching behavior of humans have been identified by analyzing the experimental scenarios. The capabilities required for a service robot for implementing a human-like approaching mechanism are discussed based on the outcomes of the human study. Furthermore, the directions for future investigation of human approaching behavior through human studies are also provided.