Latest Human-robot interaction Stories

For people, being touched can initiate many different reactions from comfort to discomfort, from intimacy to aggression. But how might people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would they take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found people generally had a positive response toward being touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot's intent made a significant difference. The research is being...

Getting someone's attention can be easy with a loud noise or a shout, but what if the situation calls for a little more tact? How can a robot use subtle cues to attract a human's notice and tell when it has captured it? In a preliminary study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found that they can program a robot to understand when it gains a human's attention and when it falls short. The research is being presented today at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in...

When people communicate, the way they move has as much to do with what they're saying as the words that come out of their mouths. But what about when robots communicate with people? How can robots use non-verbal communication to interact more naturally with humans? Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that when robots move in a more human-like fashion, with one movement leading into the next, that people can not only better recognize what the robot is doing, but they can...

A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught. While this sounds like a scene from one of the Terminator movies, it's actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception."We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine and we...

Dennis Hong is living his dreams ... literally ... in a lab filled with wacky robots"When I was seven years old, I watched the film 'Star Wars' for the very first time. It just completely blew my mind. All the robots and spaceships," recalls Dennis Hong. You never know where you will find inspiration! For Hong, a mechanical engineer, it was there, on the silver screen."R2D2, how it moved, its locomotion, inspired me to study robot locomotion, and C3PO, the human servant robot,...

WESTMINSTER, Md., June 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- A General Dynamics Robotics Systems-led consortium of eight academic and corporate leaders in robotic technologies has been awarded a $63 million five-year research agreement by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory to create the technical foundation supporting development of autonomous unmanned air and ground systems. This agreement also has a second five-year option worth $67 million, and a parallel technology-transition contract valued at...

A new tool for dieters is scheduled to be released later this year, but this one actually talks to you and tells you what you need to hear. A robot, named Autom, developed by Cory Kidd, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will allow dieters to have encouraging interactions with the 15-inch-tall device, as it counts calories and provides feedback about their weight-loss progress. Autom has a unique computer inside its head that allows it to search out a human face in front...

When the legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov penned the "Three Laws of Responsible Robotics," he forever changed the way humans think about artificial intelligence, and inspired generations of engineers to take up robotics.In the current issue of journal IEEE Intelligent Systems, two engineers propose alternative laws to rewrite our future with robots.The future they foresee is at once safer, and more realistic."When you think about it, our cultural view of robots has...

Project aims to enable humanoids to interact with people and their environmentA Drexel University-led research team late last week unveiled the newest, most central member of its collaboration with a team of Korean researchers:  Jaemi, a humanoid (HUBO). Jaemi HUBO embodies efforts to advance humanoid development and enhance the concept of human-robotic interaction. The project's goal is to enable humanoids to interact with their environment, and enhancement plans include enabling the...

WALTHAM, Mass., April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Charles River Ventures (CRV), one of the nation's leading early-stage venture capital firms, today announced that Sebastian Thrun has joined the firm as senior advisor. Thrun is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, where he also directs the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). He also serves as a principal engineer at Google where he was a key driver behind Google StreetView. A leading...