Lavit Nicora Matteo, Prajod Pooja, Mondellini Marta, Tauro Giovanni, Vertechy Rocco, André Elisabeth, Malosio Matteo
Institute of Intelligent Industrial Technologies and Systems for Advanced Manufacturing, National Research Council of Italy, Lecco, Italy.
Industrial Engineering Department, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Front Robot AI. 2024 Jul 17;11:1394379. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1394379. eCollection 2024.
In this work we explore a potential approach to improve human-robot collaboration experience by adapting cobot behavior based on natural cues from the operator. Inspired by the literature on human-human interactions, we conducted a wizard-of-oz study to examine whether a gaze towards the cobot can serve as a trigger for initiating joint activities in collaborative sessions. In this study, 37 participants engaged in an assembly task while their gaze behavior was analyzed. We employed a gaze-based attention recognition model to identify when the participants look at the cobot. Our results indicate that in most cases (83.74%), the joint activity is preceded by a gaze towards the cobot. Furthermore, during the entire assembly cycle, the participants tend to look at the cobot mostly around the time of the joint activity. Given the above results, a fully integrated system triggering joint action only when the gaze is directed towards the cobot was piloted with 10 volunteers, of which one characterized by high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder. Even though they had never interacted with the robot and did not know about the gaze-based triggering system, most of them successfully collaborated with the cobot and reported a smooth and natural interaction experience. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the natural gaze behavior of participants working on a joint activity with a robot during a collaborative assembly task and to attempt the full integration of an automated gaze-based triggering system.
在这项工作中，我们探索了一种潜在的方法，即根据操作员的自然线索调整协作机器人的行为，以改善人机协作体验。受关于人际互动的文献启发，我们进行了一项模拟实验研究，以检验看向协作机器人的目光是否可以作为在协作会话中启动联合活动的触发因素。在这项研究中，37名参与者参与了一项装配任务，同时对他们的注视行为进行了分析。我们采用了基于注视的注意力识别模型来识别参与者何时看向协作机器人。我们的结果表明，在大多数情况下（83.74%），联合活动之前会有看向协作机器人的目光。此外，在整个装配周期中，参与者倾向于在联合活动前后的时间里大多看向协作机器人。鉴于上述结果，一个仅在目光指向协作机器人时触发联合行动的完全集成系统在10名志愿者中进行了试点，其中一名患有高功能自闭症谱系障碍。尽管他们从未与机器人互动过，也不知道基于注视的触发系统，但他们中的大多数人都成功地与协作机器人进行了协作，并报告了顺畅自然的互动体验。据我们所知，这是第一项分析在协作装配任务中与机器人进行联合活动的参与者的自然注视行为，并尝试完全集成基于自动化注视的触发系统的研究。
