Design and Evaluation of Everyday Interactive Robots
Abstract
As robots appear in more everyday environments, they will have new
opportunities to enhance the lives of the people around them. Despite
this potential gain, modern robots lack many of the necessary skills
to effectively interact with people. In particular, almost all robots
lack the kinds of social touch capabilities that help human beings to
learn about the world and connect with one another. My goal is to
improve the social-physical human-robot interaction (spHRI)
capabilities of robots in everyday environments to make them effective
agents for supporting the communication, health, and learning of
individuals.
This talk covers the ways I have combined physical human-robot
interaction and social robotics to help people understand robot
capabilities, form connections with support robots, and feel socially
embedded in a remote environment. In collaborative manufacturing
settings, I aim to use spHRI to improve trust and performance in
human-robot teamwork. Previously, I investigated ways that human-robot
hand-clapping games could serve as an icebreaker activity in this type
of collaboration. Using similar social touch abilities, I also
designed and evaluated human-robot exercise games to help older adults
stay active. Currently, I research telepresence robots for education.
Such telepresence platforms might have the ability to preserve the
educational and social experiences of children who miss extended
amounts of school, but only if these systems improve in their ability
to interact with remote environments. Overall, this interdisciplinary
research combines principles from control theory, signal processing,
machine learning, psychology, design, mechatronics, and other areas.
My ongoing and future research will yield everyday robotic systems
with the potential to help people live more productive, healthy, and
enriching lives.
Bio
Naomi Fitter is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Southern California (USC) working with Prof. Maja Mataric in the Interaction Lab, part of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center (RASC). Prior to working at USC, she completed her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics and M.S.E. in Robotics at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Lab with Prof. Katherine Kuchenbecker. She also holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. degree in Spanish from the University of Cincinnati. Naomi's research interests include physical human-robot interaction, socially assistive robotics, haptics, robots in education, and wearable sensors. Her academic honors include the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and Penn's John A. Goff Prize.