Robots with Different Embodiments Can Express and Influence Carefulness in Object Manipulation
This addresses the problem of enabling robots to communicate object properties like fragility implicitly for more natural human-robot collaboration, though it is incremental in exploring specific motion features.
The study investigated whether robots with different embodiments (iCub and Baxter) could communicate carefulness during object manipulation through movement design, finding that human observers correctly perceived this feature and it elicited motor adaptation in subsequent human actions.
Humans have an extraordinary ability to communicate and read the properties of objects by simply watching them being carried by someone else. This level of communicative skills and interpretation, available to humans, is essential for collaborative robots if they are to interact naturally and effectively. For example, suppose a robot is handing over a fragile object. In that case, the human who receives it should be informed of its fragility in advance, through an immediate and implicit message, i.e., by the direct modulation of the robot's action. This work investigates the perception of object manipulations performed with a communicative intent by two robots with different embodiments (an iCub humanoid robot and a Baxter robot). We designed the robots' movements to communicate carefulness or not during the transportation of objects. We found that not only this feature is correctly perceived by human observers, but it can elicit as well a form of motor adaptation in subsequent human object manipulations. In addition, we get an insight into which motion features may induce to manipulate an object more or less carefully.