Showing Robots How to Follow People using a Broomstick Interface

摘要

Figure 1 –During demonstration the primary person walks as they normally would in the given circumstance and the designer pushes a robot (iRobot Roomba) on a broomstick to demonstrate the style in which the robot should follow the primary person. Following, during generation the primary person walks normally and the interactive robot path and style is automatically generated in real-time to react to the primary person in a way that matches the demonstration style. Abstract—Robots are poised to enter our everyday environments such as our homes and offices, contexts that present unique questions such as the style of the robot’s actions. Style-oriented characteristics are difficult to define programmatically, a problem that is particularly prominent for a robot’s interactive behaviors, those that must react accordingly to dynamic actions of people. In this paper, we present a technique for programming the style of how a robot should follow a person by demonstration, such that non-technical designers and users can directly create the style of following using their existing skill sets. We envision that simple physical interfaces like ours can be used by nontechnical people to design the style of a wide range of robotic behaviors. I.