The 1st Workshop on Public Space Human-Robot Interaction (PubRob 2013)

Robots in public spaces: towards multi-party, short-term, dynamic human-robot interaction

Held as part of the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR 2013)
Bristol, United Kingdom
27 October 2013

Workshop overview

The development of robots capable of interacting with humans has made tremendous progress in the last decade, leading to an expectation that in the near future, robots will be increasingly deployed in public spaces, for example as receptionists, shop assistants, waiters, or bartenders. In these scenarios, robots must necessarily deal with situations that require socially appropriate human-robot interactions of a specific nature: interactions that are short and dynamic, and where the robot has to be able to deal with multiple persons at once. In order to do so, robots typically require specific skills, including robust video and audio processing, fast reasoning and decision making mechanisms, and natural and safe output path planning algorithms. As a result, research on public space robots is often fundamentally different from other work in social robotics and HRI that focuses on long-term, robot companions who interact with humans in one-on-one interactions. This workshop aims to bring together researchers from diverse disciplines, in order to explore this research area from different perspectives.

Invited speakers

Dan Bohus, Microsoft Research, USA
Jon Barker, Speech and Hearing Research Group, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Papers and slides

• Introduction: Workshop introduction and overview [slides]
  Manuel Giuliani

• JAMES talk: Planning for task-based social interaction in the JAMES bartender domain [slides] [JAMES]
  Ron Petrick

• Invited talk: Dialog in the Open-World: Challenges and Opportunities
  Dan Bohus

• Invited talk: Towards Human-Robot Speech Communication in Everyday Environments [slides]
  Jon Barker

• Long paper: Pilot study of a socially assistive robot for the practice of the medical examination in hospital of adults with cognitive disabilities [paper] [slides]
  C. Granata, P. Bidaud, J. Bourgeois, C. Poirey, and P. Robert

• Long paper: NAO Robot as a Social Mediator: A User Study [paper]
  Yasir Tahir, Umer Rasheed, Keng Hui, Shoko Dauwels, Justin Dauwels, Daniel Thalmann, and Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann

• Long paper: User evaluation of a multi-user social interaction model implemented on a Nao robot [paper] [slides]
  Simon Keizer, Pantelis Kastoris, Mary Ellen Foster, Amol Deshmukh, and Oliver Lemon

• Long paper: The Particle Swarm Optimization: A Flexible approach to Generate Robot Behaviors [paper]
  A. Meddahi and R. Chellali

• Short paper: Short Duration Robot Interaction at an Airport: Challenges from a Socio-Psychological Point of View [paper] [slides]
  Michiel Joosse, Manja Lohse, and Vanessa Evers

• Short paper: A museum guide robot: Dealing with multiple participants in the real-world [paper]
  Karola Pitsch, Raphaela Gehle, and Sebastian Wrede

Programme committee

Mary Ellen Foster, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom
Andre Gaschler, fortiss GmbH, Germany
Robin Hill, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Simon Keizer, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom
Sebastian Loth, Universität Bielefeld, Germany
Maria Pateraki, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Greece
Markus Rickert, fortiss GmbH, Germany
Markos Sigalas, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Greece
Zhuoran Wang, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom

Organisers

Manuel Giuliani, fortiss GmbH, Germany
Ron Petrick, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

This workshop was organised in the context of the JAMES project (Grant no. 270435, 2011-2014), funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme.