Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Yuanbo Hou is a multidisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of audio intelligence and human-robot interaction (HRI). His work spans two complementary frontiers: acoustic scene understanding and socially intelligent robotics. In the domain of audio processing, Hou developed a cooperative scene-event modelling framework for acoustic scene classification (ASC), which mirrors how humans naturally integrate environmental sounds and discrete audio events to perceive their surroundings — a contribution that has garnered 14 citations and represents a meaningful advance in context-aware robotic systems. His HRI research is equally distinctive, exploring how robots can engage more naturally and safely with humans through touch, speech, and emotion. Notably, Hou has investigated risk-taking behaviour in tactile human-robot interactions, developed speech adaptation systems that enable robots to adjust their communication dynamically rather than relying on rigid vocal outputs, and pioneered sound-based methods for decoding touch gestures and emotional states — particularly valuable for robots lacking full-body tactile sensors. His use of Transformer architectures for low-latency haptic gesture classification further demonstrates his commitment to real-time, deployable solutions. Collectively, Hou's research charts a compelling vision of robots that perceive, communicate, and respond to humans with far greater nuance and adaptability.