Adapting the Human: Leveraging Wearable Technology in HRI
This work addresses the problem of robot complexity and environmental constraints for HRI researchers and practitioners by suggesting a shift in where sensing and interaction capabilities reside.
This paper proposes a new paradigm for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) where the human, rather than the robot, is equipped with wearable technology. This approach aims to reduce the complexity and requirements of robots, potentially allowing them to operate in less structured environments.
Adhering to current HRI paradigms, all of the sensors, visualisation and legibility of actions and motions are borne by the robot or its working cell. This necessarily makes robots more complex or confines them into specialised, structured environments. We propose leveraging the state of the art of wearable technologies, such as augmented reality head mounted displays, smart watches, sensor tags and radio-frequency ranging, to "adapt" the human and reduce the requirements and complexity of robots.