1. From HRI to CRI: Crowd Robot Interaction—Understanding the Effect of Robots on Crowd Motion
- Author
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Harry Eberle, Bingqing Zhang, Javad Amirian, Julien Pettré, Catherine Holloway, and Tom Carlson
- Subjects
0209 industrial biotechnology ,General Computer Science ,Social Psychology ,Computer science ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Robotics ,Social navigation ,02 engineering and technology ,Mechatronics ,Human–robot interaction ,Motion (physics) ,Human-Computer Interaction ,Philosophy ,020901 industrial engineering & automation ,Wheelchair ,Control and Systems Engineering ,Human–computer interaction ,Robot ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Artificial intelligence ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,business ,050107 human factors ,Humanoid robot - Abstract
How does the presence of a robot affect pedestrians and crowd dynamics, and does this influence vary across robot type? In this paper, we took the first step towards answering this question by performing a crowd-robot gate-crossing experiment. The study involved 28 participants and two distinct robot representatives: A smart wheelchair and a Pepper humanoid robot. Collected data includes: video recordings; robot and participant trajectories; and participants’ responses to post-interaction questionnaires. Quantitative analysis on the trajectories suggests the robot affects crowd dynamics in terms of trajectory regularity and interaction complexity. Qualitative results indicate that pedestrians tend to be more conservative and follow “social rules” while passing a wheelchair compared to a humanoid robot. These insights can be used to design a social navigation strategy that allows more natural interaction by considering the robot effect on the crowd dynamics.
- Published
- 2021