Abstract Visual Programming of Social Robots for Novice Users

Abstract

To facilitate interaction of robots with people in public spaces it would be beneficial for them to use social behaviours: i.e. low-level behaviours that suggest the robot is a social agent. However, the implementation of such social behaviours would be difficult for novice users - i.e. non-roboticists. In this contribution, we present a high-level visual programming system that enables novices to design robot tasks which already incorporate social behavioural cues appropriate for the robot being programmed. A pilot study of this system in a museum involving members of the public designing guided tours demonstrated that the addition of the low-level social cues improve the perception of the robot and the effectiveness of the designed task behaviour. A number of areas of further exploration and development are highlighted.