Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher.
                                            Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                            
                                                
                                             What is a DOI Number?
                                        
                                    
                                
Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.
- 
            Introduction As mobile robots proliferate in communities, designers must consider the impacts these systems have on the users, onlookers, and places they encounter. It becomes increasingly necessary to study situations where humans and robots coexist in common spaces, even if they are not directly interacting. This dataset presents a multidisciplinary approach to study human-robot encounters in an indoor apartment-like setting between participants and two mobile robots. Participants take questionnaires, wear sensors for physiological measures, and take part in a focus group after experiments finish. This dataset contains raw time series data from sensors and robots, and qualitative results from focus groups. The data can be used to analyze measures of human physiological response to varied encounter conditions, and to gain insights into human preferences and comfort during community encounters with mobile robots. Dataset Contents A dictionary of terms found in the dataset can be found in the "Data-Dictionary.pdf" Synchronized XDF files from every trial with raw data from electrodermal activity (EDA), electrocardiography (ECG), photoplethysmography (PPG) and seismocardiography (SCG). These synchronized files also contain robot pose data and microphone data. Results from analysis of two important features found from heart rate variability (HRV) and EDA. Specifically, HRV_CMSEn and nsEDRfreq is computed for each participant over each trial. These results also include Robot Confidence, which is a classification score representing the confidence that the 80 physiological features considered originate from a subject in a robot encounter. The higher the score, the higher the confidence A vectormap of the environment used during testing ("AHG_vectormap.txt") and a csv with locations of participant seating within the map ("Participant-Seating-Coordinates.csv"). Each line of the vectormap represents two endpoints of a line: x1,y1,x2,y2. The coordinates of participant seating are x,y positions and rotation about the vertical axis in radians. Anonymized videos captured using two static cameras placed in the environment. They are located in the living room and small room, respectively. Animations visualized from XDF files that show participant location, robot behaviors and additional characteristics like participant-robot line-of-sight and relative audio volume. Quotes associated with themes taken from focus group data. These quotes demonstrate and justify the results of the thematic analysis. Raw text from focus groups is not included for privacy concerns. Quantitative results from focus groups associated with factors influencing perceived safety. These results demonstrate the findings from deductive content analysis. The deductive codebook is also included. Results from pre-experiment and between-trial questionnaires Copies of both questionnaires and the semi-structured focus group protocol. Human Subjects This dataset contain de-identified information for 24 total subjects over 13 experiment sessions. The population for the study is the students, faculty and staff at the University of Texas at Austin. Of the 24 participants, 18 are students and 6 are staff at the university. Ages range from 19-48 and there are 10 males and 14 females who participated. Published data has been de-identified in coordination with the university Internal Review Board. All participants signed informed consent to participate in the study and for the distribution of this data. Access Restrictions Transcripts from focus groups are not published due to privacy concerns. Videos including participants are de-identified with overlays on videos. All other data is labeled only by participant ID, which is not associated with any identifying characteristics. Experiment Design Robots This study considers indoor encounters with two quadruped mobile robots. Namely, the Boston Dynamics Spot and Unitree Go1. These mobile robots are capable of everyday movement tasks like inspection, search or mapping which may be common tasks for autonomous agents in university communities. The study focus on perceived safety of bystanders under encounters with these relevant platforms. Control Conditions and Experiment Session Layout We control three variables in this study: Participant seating social (together in the living room) v. isolated (one in living room, other in small room) Robots Together v. Separate Robot Navigation v. Search Behavior A visual representation of the three control variables are shown on the left in (a)-(d) including the robot behaviors and participant seating locations, shown as X's. Blue represent social seating and yellow represent isolated seating. (a) shows the single robot navigation path. (b) is the two robot navigation paths. In (c) is the single robot search path and (d) shows the two robot search paths. The order of behaviors and seating locations are randomized and then inserted into the experiment session as overviewed in (e). These experiments are designed to gain insights into human responses to encounters with robots. The first step is receiving consent from the followed by a pre-experiment questionnaire that documents demographics, baseline stress information and big 5 personality traits. The nature video is repeated before and after the experimental session to establish a relaxed baseline physiological state. Experiments take place over 8 individual trials, which are defined by a subject seat arrangement, search or navigation behavior, and robots together or separate. After each of the 8 trials, participants take the between trial questionnaire, which is a 7 point Likert scale questionnaire designed to assess perceived safety during the preceding trial. After experiments and sensor removal, participants take part in a focus group. Synchronized Data Acquisition Data is synchronized from physiological sensors, environment microphones and the robots using the architecture shown. These raw xdf files are named using the following file naming convention: Trials where participants sit together in the living room [Session number]-[trial number]-social-[robots together or separate]-[search or navigation behavior].xdf Trials where participants are isolated [Session number]-[trial number]-isolated-[subject ID living room]-[subject ID small room]-[robots together or separate]-[search or navigation behavior].xdf Qualitative Data Qualitative data is obtained from focus groups with participants after experiments. Typically, two participants take part however two sessions only included one participant. The semi-structured focus group protocol can be found in the dataset. Two different research methods are applied to focus group transcripts. Note: the full transcripts are not provided for privacy concerns. First, we performed a qualitative content analysis using deductive codes found from an existing model of perceived safety during HRI (Akalin et al. 2023). The quantitative results from this analysis are reported as frequencies of references to the various factors of perceived safety. The codebook describing these factors is included in the dataset. Second, an inductive thematic analysis was performed on the data to identify emergent themes. The resulting themes and associated quotes taken from focus groups are also included. Data Organization Data is organized in separate folders, namely: animation-videos anonymized-session-videos focus-group-results questionnaire-responses research-materials signal-analysis-results synchronized-xdf-data Data Quality Statement In limited trials, participant EDA or ECG signals or robot pose information may be missing due to connectivity issues during data acquisition. Additionally, the questionnaires for Participant ID0 and ID1 are incomplete due to an error in the implementation of the Qualtrics survey instrument used.more » « less
- 
            Ultrasonic imaging is one of the most powerful and commonplace medical tools for noninvasive visualization of soft tissues inside the body. However, ultrasonography requires highly trained sonographers to position and orient the transducer on the surface of the patient’s body, and image quality is highly dependent on the steadiness of the operator’s hand. Because of this, ultrasonic imaging has been largely limited to short and static sessions not only for logistical reasons but also because of the very real threat of musculoskeletal injuries for sonographers from repetitive motions associated with transducer manipulation ( 1 ). Coincidentally, there has also been a sonographer shortage worldwide over the past decade, and the demanding and specialized training required for certifying sonographers does not help alleviate this problem ( 2 ). On page 517 of this issue, Wang et al. ( 3 ) introduce a bioadhesive ultrasound (BAUS) patch with the potential to overcome many of these outstanding challenges.more » « less
- 
            Electronic devicesforrecording neuralactivityinthe nervoussyste m needto bescalableacrosslargespatialandte mporalscales whilealso providing millisecondandsingle-cellspatiote mporalresolution. H o w e v e r, e xi s ti n g hi g h- r e s ol u ti o n n e u r al r e c o r di n g d e vi c e s c a n n o t achievesi multaneousscalability on bothspatialandte mporallevels due toatrade-offbetweensensordensityand mechanicalflexibility. Here weintroduceathree-di mensional(3D)stackingi mplantableelectronic platfor m,basedonperfluorinateddielectricelasto mersandtissue-levelsoft multilayerelectrodes,thatenablesspatiote mporallyscalablesingle-cell neuralelectrophysiologyinthenervoussyste m. Ourelasto mersexhibit stable dielectric perfor mancefor overayearin physiologicalsolutions andare10,000ti messofterthanconventional plastic dielectrics. By leveragingthese uniquecharacteristics we developthe packaging of lithographednano metre-thickelectrodearraysina3Dconfiguration with across-sectionaldensityof7.6electrodesper100μ m2.Theresulting3D integrated multilayersoftelectrodearrayretainstissue-levelflexibility, reducingchronici m muneresponsesin mouse neuraltissues,and de monstratestheabilitytoreliablytrackelectricalactivityinthe mouse brain orspinalcord over months without disruptingani mal behaviour.more » « less
- 
            E-skins consisting of soft pressure sensors are enabling technology for soft robots, bio-integrated devices, and deformable touch panels. A well-known bottleneck of capacitive pressure sensors (CPS) is the drastic decay in sensitivity with increasing pressure. To overcome this challenge, we have invented a hybrid-response pressure sensor (HRPS) that exhibits both the piezoresistive and piezocapacitive effects intrinsic to a highly porous nanocomposite (PNC) with carbon nanotube (CNT) dopants. The HRPS is constructed with two conductive electrodes sandwiching a laminated PNC and a stiff dielectric layer. We have simplified the hybrid response into a parallel resistor–capacitor circuit, whose output depends on the AC (alternating current) frequency used for the capacitance measurement. Herein, through theoretical analysis, we discover a dimensionless parameter that governs the frequency responses of the HRPS. The master curve is validated through experiments on the HRPS with various doping ratios, subject to different compressive strains, under diverse AC frequencies. In addition, the relative contribution of piezoresistive and piezocapacitive mechanisms are also found to vary with the three parameters. Based on this experimentally validated theory, we establish a very practical guideline for selecting the optimal AC frequency for the capacitance measurement of HRPSs.more » « less
 An official website of the United States government
An official website of the United States government 
				
			 
					 
					
