skip to main content


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Pilarski, Patrick M."

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.

  1. Early research on physical human–robot interaction (pHRI) has necessarily focused on device design—the creation of compliant and sensorized hardware, such as exoskeletons, prostheses, and robot arms, that enables people to safely come in contact with robotic systems and to communicate about their collaborative intent. As hardware capabilities have become sufficient for many applications, and as computing has become more powerful, algorithms that support fluent and expressive use of pHRI systems have begun to play a prominent role in determining the systems’ usefulness. In this review, we describe a selection of representative algorithmic approaches that regulate and interpret pHRI, describing the progression from algorithms based on physical analogies, such as admittance control, to computational methods based on higher-level reasoning, which take advantage of multimodal communication channels. Existing algorithmic approaches largely enable task-specific pHRI, but they do not generalize to versatile human–robot collaboration. Throughout the review and in our discussion of next steps, we therefore argue that emergent embodied dialogue—bidirectional, multimodal communication that can be learned through continuous interaction—is one of the next frontiers of pHRI. 
    more » « less
  2. Enabling efficient communication in artificial agents brings us closer to machines that can cooperate with each other and with human partners. Hand-engineered approaches have substantial limitations, leading to increased interest in methods for communication to emerge autonomously between artificial agents. Most of the research in the field explores unsituated communication in one-step referential tasks. The tasks are not temporally interactive and lack time pressures typically present in natural communication and language learning. In these settings, agents can successfully learn what to communicate but not when or whether to communicate. Here, we extend the literature by assessing emergence of communication between reinforcement learning agents in a temporally interactive, cooperative task of navigating a gridworld environment. We show that, through multi-step interactions, agents develop just-in-time messaging protocols that enable them to successfully solve the task. With memory—which provides flexibility around message timing—agent pairs converge to a look-ahead communication protocol, finding an optimal solution to the task more quickly than without memory. Lastly, we explore situated communication, enabling the acting agent to choose when and whether to communicate. With the opportunity cost of forgoing an action to communicate, the acting agent learns to solicit information sparingly, in line with the Gricean Maxim of quantity. Our results point towards the importance of studying language emergence through situated communication in multi-step interactions. 
    more » « less