Design of a Low-Cost Social Robot: Towards Personalized Human-Robot Interaction

Author(s):  
Christian G. Puehn ◽  
Tao Liu ◽  
Yixin Feng ◽  
Kenneth Hornfeck ◽  
Kiju Lee
2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Ruiz-del-Solar ◽  
Mauricio Correa ◽  
Rodrigo Verschae ◽  
Fernando Bernuy ◽  
Patricio Loncomilla ◽  
...  

Sensor Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Neto ◽  
Nuno Mendes ◽  
A. Paulo Moreira

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to achieve reliable estimation of yaw angles by fusing data from low-cost inertial and magnetic sensing. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, yaw angle is estimated by fusing inertial and magnetic sensing from a digital compass and a gyroscope, respectively. A Kalman filter estimates the error produced by the gyroscope. Findings – Drift effect produced by the gyroscope is significantly reduced and, at the same time, the system has the ability to react quickly to orientation changes. The system combines the best of each sensor, the stability of the magnetic sensor and the fast response of the inertial sensor. Research limitations/implications – The system does not present a stable behavior in the presence of large vibrations. Considerable calibration efforts are needed. Practical implications – Today, most of human–robot interaction technologies need to have the ability to estimate orientation, especially yaw angle, from small-sized and low-cost sensors. Originality/value – Existing methods for inertial and magnetic sensor fusion are combined to achieve reliable estimation of yaw angle. Experimental tests in a human–robot interaction scenario show the performance of the system.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hua Minh Tuan ◽  
Filippo Sanfilippo ◽  
Nguyen Vinh Hao

Collaborative robots (or cobots) are robots that can safely work together or interact with humans in a common space. They gradually become noticeable nowadays. Compliant actuators are very relevant for the design of cobots. This type of actuation scheme mitigates the damage caused by unexpected collision. Therefore, elastic joints are considered to outperform rigid joints when operating in a dynamic environment. However, most of the available elastic robots are relatively costly or difficult to construct. To give researchers a solution that is inexpensive, easily customisable, and fast to fabricate, a newly-designed low-cost, and open-source design of an elastic joint is presented in this work. Based on the newly design elastic joint, a highly-compliant multi-purpose 2-DOF robot arm for safe human-robot interaction is also introduced. The mechanical design of the robot and a position control algorithm are presented. The mechanical prototype is 3D-printed. The control algorithm is a two loops control scheme. In particular, the inner control loop is designed as a model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) to deal with uncertainties in the system parameters, while the outer control loop utilises a fuzzy proportional-integral controller to reduce the effect of external disturbances on the load. The control algorithm is first validated in simulation. Then the effectiveness of the controller is also proven by experiments on the mechanical prototype.


Author(s):  
Aike C. Horstmann ◽  
Nicole C. Krämer

AbstractSince social robots are rapidly advancing and thus increasingly entering people’s everyday environments, interactions with robots also progress. For these interactions to be designed and executed successfully, this study considers insights of attribution theory to explore the circumstances under which people attribute responsibility for the robot’s actions to the robot. In an experimental online study with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design (N = 394), people read a vignette describing the social robot Pepper either as an assistant or a competitor and its feedback, which was either positive or negative during a subsequently executed quiz, to be generated autonomously by the robot or to be pre-programmed by programmers. Results showed that feedback believed to be autonomous leads to more attributed agency, responsibility, and competence to the robot than feedback believed to be pre-programmed. Moreover, the more agency is ascribed to the robot, the better the evaluation of its sociability and the interaction with it. However, only the valence of the feedback affects the evaluation of the robot’s sociability and the interaction with it directly, which points to the occurrence of a fundamental attribution error.


Author(s):  
Xiaoran Fan ◽  
Daewon Lee ◽  
Lawrence Jackel ◽  
Richard Howard ◽  
Daniel Lee ◽  
...  

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 369-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Dautenhahn ◽  
Chrystopher L. Nehaniv ◽  
Michael L. Walters ◽  
Ben Robins ◽  
Hatice Kose-Bagci ◽  
...  

This paper provides a comprehensive introduction to the design of the minimally expressive robot KASPAR, which is particularly suitable for human–robot interaction studies. A low-cost design with off-the-shelf components has been used in a novel design inspired from a multi-disciplinary viewpoint, including comics design and Japanese Noh theatre. The design rationale of the robot and its technical features are described in detail. Three research studies will be presented that have been using KASPAR extensively. Firstly, we present its application in robot-assisted play and therapy for children with autism. Secondly, we illustrate its use in human–robot interaction studies investigating the role of interaction kinesics and gestures. Lastly, we describe a study in the field of developmental robotics into computational architectures based on interaction histories for robot ontogeny. The three areas differ in the way as to how the robot is being operated and its role in social interaction scenarios. Each will be introduced briefly and examples of the results will be presented. Reflections on the specific design features of KASPAR that were important in these studies and lessons learnt from these studies concerning the design of humanoid robots for social interaction will also be discussed. An assessment of the robot in terms of utility of the design for human–robot interaction experiments concludes the paper.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 1550007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kędzierski ◽  
Paweł Kaczmarek ◽  
Michał Dziergwa ◽  
Krzysztof Tchoń

We can learn from the history of robotics that robots are getting closer to humans, both in the physical as well as in the social sense. The development line of robotics is marked with the triad: industrial — assistive — social robots, that leads from human–robot separation toward human–robot interaction. A social robot is a robot able to act autonomously and to interact with humans using social cues. A social robot that can assist a human for a longer period of time is called a robotic companion. This paper is devoted to the design and control issues of such a robotic companion, with reference to the robot FLASH designed at the Wroclaw University of Technology within the European project LIREC, and currently developed by the authors. Two HRI experiments with FLASH demonstrate the human attitude toward FLASH. A trial testing of the robot's emotional system is described.


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