Attention:The NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) system and access will be unavailable from 11:00 PM ET on Thursday, October 15th until 12:00 AM ET on Friday, October 16th due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.


Title: End-User Development for Human-Robot Interaction
End-user development (EUD) represents a key step towards making robotics accessible for experts and non-experts alike. Within academia, researchers investigate novel ways that EUD tools can capture, represent, visualize, analyze, and test developer intent. At the same time, industry researchers increasingly build and ship programming tools that enable customers to interact with their robots. However, despite this growing interest, the role of EUD within HRI is not well defined. EUD struggles to situate itself within a growing array of alternative approaches to application development, such as robot learning and teleoperation. EUD further struggles due to the wide range of individuals who can be considered end users, such as independent third-party application developers, consumers, hobbyists, or even employees of the robot manufacturer. Key questions remain such as how EUD is justified over alternate approaches to application development, which contexts EUD is most suited for, who the target users of an EUD system are, and where interaction between a human and a robot takes place, amongst many other questions. We seek to address these challenges and questions by organizing the frst End-User Development for Human-Robot Interaction (EUD4HRI) workshop at the 2024 International Conference of Human-Robot Interaction. The workshop will bring together researchers with a wide range of expertise across academia and industry, spanning perspectives from multiple subfields of robotics, with the primary goal being a consensus of perspectives about the role that EUD must play within human-robot interaction.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1925043
PAR ID:
10536756
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
ACM
Date Published:
ISBN:
9798400703232
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1355 to 1357
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Boulder CO USA
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and End-User Development (EUD) look at automation from two different perspectives. The former tends to provide fully automatic solutions, the latter aims to empower users to directly create what they want. We need both, but it is still unclear how to combine them to obtain effective every-day automations that meet the flexible and dynamic user needs. The panel aims to stimulate the Human-Computer Interaction community to think more carefully about such aspects and the possible approaches to address them. 
    more » « less
  2. As service robots become more capable of autonomous behaviors, it becomes increasingly important to consider how people will be able to communicate with a robot about what task it should perform and how to do the task. There has been a rise in attention to end-user development (EUD), where researchers create interfaces that enable non-roboticist end users to script tasks for autonomous robots to perform. Currently, state-of-the-art interfaces are largely constrained, often through simplified domains or restrictive end-user interaction. Motivated by our past qualitative design work exploring how to integrate a care robot in an assisted living community, we discuss challenges of EUD in this complex domain. One set of challenges stems from different user-facing representations, e.g., certain tasks may lend themselves better to a rule-based trigger-action representations, whereas other tasks may be easier to specify via a sequence of actions. The other stems from considering the needs of multiple stakeholders, e.g., caregivers and residents of the facility may all create tasks for the robot, but the robot may not be able to share information about all tasks with all residents due to privacy concerns. We present scenarios that illustrate these challenges and also discuss possible solutions. 
    more » « less
  3. With the introduction of Industry 5.0, there is a growing focus on human-robot collaboration and the empowerment of human workers through the se of robotic technologies. Collaborative robots, or cobots, are well suited for filling the needs of industry. Cobots have a prioritization on safety and collaboration, giving them the unique ability to work in close proximity with people. This has the potential impact of increasing task productivity and efficiency while reducing ergonomic strain on human workers, as cobots can collaborate on tasks as teammates and support their human collaborators. However, effectively deploying and using cobots requires multidisciplinary knowledge spanning fields such as human factors and ergonomics, economics, and human-robot interaction. This knowledge barrier represents a growing challenge in industry, as workers lack the skills necessary to effectively leverage and realize the potential of cobots within their applications, resulting in cobots often being used non-collaboratively as a form of cheap automation. This presents several research opportunities for the creation of new cobot systems that support users in the creation of cobot interactions. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the use of abstraction and scaffolding supports within cobot systems to assist users in building human-robot collaborations. Specifically, this research (1) presents updates to the design of systems for planning and programming collaborative tasks, and (2) evaluates each system to understand how it can support user creation of cobot interactions. First, I present the CoFrame cobot programming system, a tool built on prior work, and illustrate how it supports user creation and understanding of cobot programs. Then, I present the evaluation of the system with domain experts, novices, and a real-world deployment to understand in which ways CoFrame does and does not successfully support users. I then describe the Allocobot system for allocating work and planning collaborative interactions, describing how it encodes multiple models of domain knowledge within its representation. Finally, I evaluate the Allocobot system in two real-world scenarios to understand how it produces and optimizes viable interaction plans. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract Robotic automation in construction has created the need for new competencies that will enable the workforce to engage with robots safely and effectively. However, differing perceptions between industry professionals and academia make aligning academic programs with industry needs challenging. This study evaluates these perceptions to guide the design of HRC training programs. A three-round Delphi study was conducted separately with panels of industry professionals and academic experts to assess their views on HRC competencies in construction. The findings revealed that both panels identified human–robot interfaces, HRC safety and standards, robot control systems, and construction robot applications as the top five HRC knowledge areas. Industry professionals also emphasized task planning knowledge, while academic experts focused on HRC ethics. Key HRC skills include effective communication, safety management, technical proficiency, and compliance with regulations and standards, with industry professionals prioritizing proficiency in task planning and academics emphasizing human–robot interface proficiency. Both expert panels prioritized teamwork, continuous learning, problem-solving, communication, and adaptability as top-rated HRC abilities. This study contributes to knowledge by defining key HRC competencies and identifying differences in priorities between industry and academia. These insights can guide the development of academic curricula that better align with industry needs, supporting the creation of training programs that equip the workforce with the competencies required for safe and effective robotic collaboration. The study also promotes collaboration between industry and academia, fostering innovation in HRC and robotics in construction. Future research directions are proposed to explore innovative training methods to equip the future workforce with HRC competencies. 
    more » « less
  5. Robots and other autonomous agents are well-positioned in the research discourse to support the care of people with challenges such as physical and/or cognitive disabilities. However, designing these robots can be complex as it involves considering a wide range of factors (e.g., individual needs, physical environment, technology capabilities, digital literacy), stakeholders (e.g., care recipients, formal and informal caregivers, technology developers), and contexts (e.g., hospitals, nursing homes, outpatient care facilities, private homes). The challenges are in gaining design insights for this unique use case and translating this knowledge into actionable, generalizable guidelines for other designers. This one-day workshop seeks to bring together researchers with diverse expertise and experience across academia, healthcare, and industry, spanning perspectives from multiple disciplines, including design, robotics, and human-computer interaction, with the primary goal being a consensus on best practices for generating and operationalizing design knowledge for robotic systems for care settings. 
    more » « less