scholarly journals A Novel Method for Estimating Distances from a Robot to Humans Using Egocentric RGB Camera

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (14) ◽  
pp. 3142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sai Krishna Pathi ◽  
Andrey Kiselev ◽  
Annica Kristoffersson ◽  
Dirk Repsilber ◽  
Amy Loutfi
Keyword(s):  
Euclidean Distance ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Image Plane ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Characteristic Points ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Cluttered Background ◽  
And Gender

Estimating distances between people and robots plays a crucial role in understanding social Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) from an egocentric view. It is a key step if robots should engage in social interactions, and to collaborate with people as part of human–robot teams. For distance estimation between a person and a robot, different sensors can be employed, and the number of challenges to be addressed by the distance estimation methods rise with the simplicity of the technology of a sensor. In the case of estimating distances using individual images from a single camera in a egocentric position, it is often required that individuals in the scene are facing the camera, do not occlude each other, and are fairly visible so specific facial or body features can be identified. In this paper, we propose a novel method for estimating distances between a robot and people using single images from a single egocentric camera. The method is based on previously proven 2D pose estimation, which allows partial occlusions, cluttered background, and relatively low resolution. The method estimates distance with respect to the camera based on the Euclidean distance between ear and torso of people in the image plane. Ear and torso characteristic points has been selected based on their relatively high visibility regardless of a person orientation and a certain degree of uniformity with regard to the age and gender. Experimental validation demonstrates effectiveness of the proposed method.

scholarly journals A variable admittance control strategy for stable physical human–robot interaction

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 747-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Ferraguti ◽  
Chiara Talignani Landi ◽  
Lorenzo Sabattini ◽  
Marcello Bonfè ◽  
Cesare Fantuzzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Admittance Control ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Interaction Control ◽  
Human Arm ◽  
Industrial Operations ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Stability Issues ◽  
Human Robot Collaboration

Admittance control allows a desired dynamic behavior to be reproduced on a non-backdrivable manipulator and it has been widely used for interaction control and, in particular, for human–robot collaboration. Nevertheless, stability problems arise when the environment (e.g. the human) the robot is interacting with becomes too stiff. In this paper, we investigate the stability issues related to a change of stiffness of the human arm during the interaction with an admittance-controlled robot. We propose a novel method for detecting the rise of instability and a passivity-preserving strategy for restoring a stable behavior. The results of the paper are validated on two robotic setups and with 50 users performing two tasks that emulate industrial operations.

scholarly journals Human–Robot Interaction and Sexbots: A Systematic Literature Review

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 216
Author(s):  
Carina Soledad González-González ◽  
Rosa María Gil-Iranzo ◽  
Patricia Paderewski-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Systematic Literature Review ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Male Bias ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
And Gender

At present, sexual robots have become a new paradigm of social robots. In this paper, we developed a systematic literature review about sexual robots (sexbots). To do this, we used the Scopus and WoS databases to answer different research questions regarding the design, interaction, and gender and ethical approaches from 1980 until 2020. In our review, we found a male bias in this discipline, and in recent years, articles have shown that user opinion has become more relevant. Some insights and recommendations on gender and ethics in designing sexual robots were also made.

scholarly journals Students’ Perceptions and Acceptance of lego Robots in Syria

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-33
Author(s):  
Ghaith Mqawass
Keyword(s):  
Online Courses ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Gender Effects ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Degree Of Acceptance ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Educational Robots ◽  
Two Age Groups

An important recent trend in education has been the integration of different technologies such as digital games, online courses, and educational robots. The development of educational robots such as lego Mindstorms nxt allows students to learn to build their own robots. This paper describes the human-robot interaction (hri) focusing especially on the model lego Mindstorms nxt. A questionnaire among 250 Syrian school and university students was conducted to investigate the different perceptions about lego robots in 2016. The informants were grouped based on their age; participants in the first group were aged between 11 and 18 years while participants in the second between 19 and 24. The current study also focuses on the factors leading to the acceptance of lego robots. Another questionnaire was conducted to highlight what factors determine the degree of acceptance of lego robots by the studied groups. Significant age and gender effects were found. The results show a noticeable difference between the two age groups, with the younger group tending to accept lego robots more. Furthermore, it was found that male respondents show more positive reactions towards lego robots than females.

scholarly journals Toward Design of a Drip-Stand Patient Follower Robot

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zewen Wu ◽  
Shahram Payandeh
Keyword(s):  
Template Matching ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Spatial Location ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Hospital Environment ◽  
Movement Trajectory ◽  
Patient Privacy ◽  
Camera Model ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Person Following

A person following robot is an application of service robotics that primarily focuses on human-robot interaction, for example, in security and health care. This paper explores some of the design and development challenges of a patient follower robot. Our motivation stemmed from common mobility challenges associated with patients holding on and pulling the medical drip stand. Unlike other designs for person following robots, the proposed design objectives need to preserve as much as patient privacy and operational challenges in the hospital environment. We placed a single camera closer to the ground, which can result in a narrower field of view to preserve patient privacy. Through a unique design of artificial markers placed on various hospital clothing, we have shown how the visual tracking algorithm can determine the spatial location of the patient with respect to the robot. The robot control algorithm is implemented in three parts: (a) patient detection; (b) distance estimation; and (c) trajectory controller. For patient detection, the proposed algorithm utilizes two complementary tools for target detection, namely, template matching and colour histogram comparison. We applied a pinhole camera model for the estimation of distance from the robot to the patient. We proposed a novel movement trajectory planner to maintain the dynamic tipping stability of the robot by adjusting the peak acceleration. The paper further demonstrates the practicality of the proposed design through several experimental case studies.

scholarly journals A Robot Learning Method with Physiological Interface for Teleoperation Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 2099 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Luo ◽  
Chenguang Yang ◽  
Hang Su ◽  
Chao Liu
Keyword(s):  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Human Operator ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Time Warping ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Working Environments ◽  
Teleoperation System ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Dynamic Time ◽  
Teleoperation Systems

The human operator largely relies on the perception of remote environmental conditions to make timely and correct decisions in a prescribed task when the robot is teleoperated in a remote place. However, due to the unknown and dynamic working environments, the manipulator’s performance and efficiency of the human-robot interaction in the tasks may degrade significantly. In this study, a novel method of human-centric interaction, through a physiological interface was presented to capture the information details of the remote operation environments. Simultaneously, in order to relieve workload of the human operator and to improve efficiency of the teleoperation system, an updated regression method was proposed to build up a nonlinear model of demonstration for the prescribed task. Considering that the demonstration data were of various lengths, dynamic time warping algorithm was employed first to synchronize the data over time before proceeding with other steps. The novelty of this method lies in the fact that both the task-specific information and the muscle parameters from the human operator have been taken into account in a single task; therefore, a more natural and safer interaction between the human and the robot could be achieved. The feasibility of the proposed method was demonstrated by experimental results.

scholarly journals Effects of Robot Facial Characteristics and Gender in Persuasive Human-Robot Interaction

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimi S. Ghazali ◽  
Jaap Ham ◽  
Emilia I. Barakova ◽  
Panos Markopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
And Gender
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