User, Gesture and Robot Behaviour Adaptation for Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

Human-robot interaction has been an emerging research topic in recent year because robots are playing important roles in today’s society, from factory automation to service applications to medical care and entertainment. The goal of human-robot interaction (HRI) research is to define a general human model that could lead to principles and algorithms allowing more natural and effective interaction between humans and robots. Ueno [Ueno, 2002] proposed a concept of Symbiotic Information Systems (SIS) as well as a symbiotic robotics system as one application of SIS, where humans and robots can communicate with each other in human friendly ways using speech and gesture. A Symbiotic Information System is an information system that includes human beings as an element, blends into human daily life, and is designed on the concept of symbiosis [Ueno, 2001]. Research on SIS covers a broad area, including intelligent human-machine interaction with gesture, gaze, speech, text command, etc. The objective of SIS is to allow non-expert users, who might not even be able to operate a computer keyboard, to control robots. It is therefore necessary that these robots be equipped with natural interfaces using speech and gesture. There are several researches on human robot interaction in recent years especially focussing assistance to human. Severinson-Eklundh et. al. have developed a fetch-and-carry-robot (Cero) for motion-impaired users in the office environment [Severinson-Eklundh, 2003]. King et. al. [King, 1990] developed a ‘Helpmate robot’, which has already been deployed at numerous hospitals as a caregiver. Endres et. al. [Endres, 1998] developed a cleaning robot that has successfully been served in a supermarket during opening hours. Siegwart et. al. described the ‘Robox’ robot that worked as a tour guide during the Swiss national Exposition in 2002 [Siegwart, 2003]. Pineau et. al. described a mobile robot ‘Pearl’ that assists elderly people in daily living [Pineau, 2003]. Fong and Nourbakhsh [Fong, 2003] have summarized some applications of socially interactive robots. The use of intelligent robots encourages the view of the machine as a partner in communication rather than as a tool. In the near future, robots will interact closely with a group of humans in their everyday environment in the field of entertainment, recreation, health-care, nursing, etc. Although there is no doubt that the fusion of gesture and speech allows more natural human-robot interaction, for single modality gesture recognition can be considered more reliable than speech recognition. Human voice varies from person to person, and the system