Studies about the dynamics of human-robot interactions have increased within the past decade as robots become more integrated into the daily lives of humans. However, much of the research into learning and robotics has been focused on methods that would allow robots to learn from humans and very little has been done on how and what, if possible, humans could learn from programmed robots. A between-subjects experiment was conducted, in which two groups were compared: a group where the participants learned a simple pick-and-place block task via video of a human-teacher and a group where the participants learned the same pick-and-place block task via video from a robotic-teacher. After being the taught the task, the participants performed a 15-minute distracter task and then were timed in their reconstruction of the block configuration. An exit survey asking about their level of comfort learning from robot and computer entities was given upon completion. Results showed that there was no significant difference in the rebuild scores of the two groups, but there was a marginally significant difference in the rebuild times of the two groups. Exit survey results, research implications, and future work are discussed.

Improvements in autonomous systems technology and a growing demand within military operations are spurring a revolution in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). These mixed-initiative human-robot teams are enabled by Multi-Modal Communication (MMC), which supports redundancy and levels of communication that are more robust than single mode interaction. (Bischoff & Graefe, 2002; Partan & Marler, 1999). Tactile communication via vibrotactile displays is an emerging technology, potentially beneficial to advancing HRI. Incorporation of tactile displays within MMC requires developing messages equivalent in communication power to speech and visual signals used in the military. Toward that end, two experiments were performed to investigate the feasibility of a tactile language using a lexicon of standardized tactons (tactile icons) within a sentence structure for communication of messages for robot to human communication. Experiment one evaluated tactons from the literature with standardized parameters grouped into categories (directional, dynamic, and static) based on the nature and meaning of the patterns to inform design of a tactile syntax. Findings of this experiment revealed directional tactons showed better performance than non-directional tactons, therefore syntax for experiment two composed of a non-directional and a directional tacton was more likely to show performance better than chance. Experiment two tested the syntax structure of equally performing tactons identified from experiment one, revealing participants’ ability to interpret tactile sentences better than chance with or without the presence of an independent work imperative task. This finding advanced the state of the art in tactile displays from one to two word phrases facilitating inclusion of the tactile modality within MMC for HRI

Autonomous robots are increasingly being used in everyday life; cleaning our floors, entertaining us and supplementing soldiers in the battlefield. As emotion is a key ingredient in how we interact with others, it is important that our emotional interaction with these new entities be understood. This dissertation proposes using the appraisal theory of emotion (Roseman, Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001) to investigate how we understand and evaluate situations involving this new breed of robot. This research involves two studies; in the first study an experimental method was used in which participants interacted with a live dog, a robotic dog or a non-anthropomorphic robot to attempt to accomplish a set of tasks. The appraisals of motive consistent / motive inconsistent (the task was performed correctly/incorrectly) and high / low perceived control (the teammate was well trained/not well trained) were manipulated to show the practicality of using appraisal theory as a basis for human robot interaction studies. Robot form was investigated for its influence on emotions experienced. Finally, the influence of high and low control on the experience of positive emotions caused by another was investigated. Results show that a human - robot live interaction test bed is a valid way to influence participants' appraisals. Manipulation checks of motive consistent / motive inconsistent, high / low perceived control and the proper appraisal of cause were significant. Form was shown to influence both the positive and negative emotions experienced, the more lifelike agents were rated higher in positive emotions and lower in negative emotions. The emotion gratitude was shown to be greater during conditions of low control when the entities performed correctly,suggesting that more experiments should be conducted investigating agent caused motive-conducive events. A second study was performed with participants evaluating their reaction to a hypothetical story. In this story they were interacting with either a human, robotic dog, or robot to complete a task. These three agent types and high/low perceived control were manipulated with all stories ending successfully. Results indicated that gratitude and appreciation are sensitive to the manipulation of agent type. It is suggested that, based on the results of these studies, the emotion gratitude should be added to Roseman et al. (2001) appraisal theory to describe the emotion felt during low-control, motive-consistent, other-caused events. These studies have also shown that the appraisal theory of emotion is useful in the study of human-robot and human-animal interactions.

In the field of control theory, optimal performance is generally defined as the best possible controlled performance given a static, unchangeable plant system. However, principled design of the underlying system can make designing effective controllers easier and dramatically improve the final control performance beyond what any finely tuned controller could achieve alone. This work develops performance metrics for serial robot arms which help guide the design and optimization of the structure of the arm to achieve greater final performance. First, a kinematic (motion-based) metric called the Actuator Independence Metric (AIM) measures the uniqueness of the movement capabilities of the different joints in a robot arm. Arms which are optimized with respect to the AIM exhibit a greater freedom of movement. In particular, it is shown that the AIM score of a robot correlates strongly with their ability to find solutions to the Inverse Kinematics problem, and that redundant arms with a high AIM score have more useful null-spaces with significant ability to change configuration while maintaining a fixed end-effector pose. Second, a dynamic metric called the Acceleration Radius is explored. The acceleration radius measures the maximum acceleration which a robot arm is capable of generating in any direction. An efficient algorithm for calculating the acceleration radius is developed which exploits the geometry of the mapping from joint torques to acceleration. A design optimization is carried out to demonstrate how the acceleration radius predicts the dynamic movement capabilities of robot arms. It is shown that arms which are optimal with respect to the acceleration radius can follow faster paths through a task space. The metrics developed in this thesis can be used to create customized robot arm designs for specific tasks, which will exhibit desirable control performance.

To solve the problem of limited tactile sensing in humanoid robotics as well as provide for future planned mechanical prostheses, an innovative tactile sensor system was created and embedded into two realistic-looking artificial skin gloves. These artificial skin tactile sensors used small piezoelectric ceramic disks to measure applied force at multiple points on each glove. The gloves were created using silicone rubber to simulate both the texture and look of human skin, while maintaining both flexibility and durability. The sensor outputs were buffered by high-impedance voltage-following operational amplifiers, and then read sequentially using a multiplexing scheme by a microcontroller. Sensor data were sent via USB to a computer, where a graphical user display was created to show the tactile information in real time. These prototypes successfully demonstrated the viability of small piezoelectric elements embedded in silicone rubber for use in creating flexible and elastic tactile sensors.

In this thesis, the viability of decentralized, noncooperative multi-robot path planning algorithms is tested. Three algorithms based on the Batch Informed Trees (BIT*) algorithm are presented. The first of these algorithms combines Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance (ORCA) with BIT*. The second of these algorithms uses BIT* to create a path which the robots then follow using an artificial potential field (APF) method. The final algorithm is a version of BIT* that supports replanning. While none of these algorithms take advantage of sharing information between the robots, the algorithms are able to guide the robots to their desired goals, with the algorithm that combines ORCA and BIT* having the robots successfully navigate to their goals over 93% for multiple environments with teams of two to eight robots.

Social robots are a lesser known technology with uncertain but seemingly very powerful potential, which for decades has been portrayed in cultural artifacts as threats to human primacy. Research on people’s relationships to non-robotic technology, however, indicates that people will treat robots socially and assimilate them into their lives in ways that may disrupt existing norms but still fulfill a fundamental human need. Through the theoretical lenses of media equation and apparatgiest, this dissertation examines facets of robot humanization, defined as how people think of robots as social and human-like entities through perceptions of liking, human-likeness, and rights’ entitlement. In a 2 (gender) x 2 (physical humanness) x 3 (status) between-subjects online experiment, this dissertation explores the influence of fixed technological traits (the robot’s gender, physical humanness, and described status) and participants’ individual differences on humanization perceptions. Findings show that the robots’ features mattered less than participants’ individual traits, which explained the most variance in humanizing perceptions of social robots. Of those, participants’ prior robot exposure (both in real life and mediated) and efficacy traits were the strongest predictors of robot liking, perceived human-likeness, and perceptions of rights entitlement. Specifically, those with more real-life exposure and who perceived themselves as more technologically competent were more likely to humanize robots, while those with higher internal loci of control and negative mediated views of robots were less inclined to humanize robots. Theoretically, this study’s findings suggest that technological affordances matter less than the ontological understanding that social robots as a category may have in people’s humanizing perceptions. Looking forward, these findings indicate that there is an opportunity in the design of social robots to set precedents now that are prosocial and reflective of the world people strive for and want to inhabit in the future.

This dissertation addresses the problem of motion planning and control for nonholonomic mobile robots, particularly wheeled and tracked mobile robots, working in extreme environments, for example, desert, forest, and mine. In such environments, the mobile robots are highly subject to external disturbances (e.g., slippery terrain, dusty air, etc.), which essentially introduce uncertainties to the robot systems. The complexity of the motion planning problem is due to taking both nonholonomic and uncertainty constraints into account simultaneously. As a result, none of the conventional nonholonomic motion planning can be directly applied. The control problem is even more challenging since state constraints posed by obstacles in the environments must also be considered along with the nonholonomic and uncertainty constraints. In this research, we systematically develop a new type of motion planning technique that determines an optimal path for a mobile robot in a given environment. This motion planning technique is based on the idea of a maximum allowable uncertainty, which is a number assigned to each free configuration in the environment. The optimal path is a path connecting given initial and goal configurations through a series of configurations respecting the nonholonomic constraint and possessing the highest maximum allowable uncertainty. Both linear and quadratic approximations of the maximum allowable uncertainty, including their corresponding motion planners, have been studied. Additionally, we develop the first real-time robust control algorithm for the mobile robot under uncertainty to follow given paths safely and accurately in cluttered environments. The control algorithm also utilizes the concept of the maximum allowable uncertainty as well as the robust control theory. The simulation results have shown the effectiveness and robustness of the control algorithm in steering the mobile robot along a given path amidst obstacles without collisions even when the level of robot uncertainty is high. / Ph. D.

Multi-robot systems leverage the numbers and characteristics of different robots to accomplish an overall mission. Efficient task allocation and motion planning of multi-robot teams are essential to ensure each robot's actions contribute to the overall mission while avoiding conflict with each other. The original contribution of this thesis is an optimized, efficient, and multi-factor task allocation algorithm to comprise the main component of a task coordination framework (TCF), with motion planning as a secondary component. This algorithm determines which robot performs which tasks and in what order. It presents a novel solution to the multiple robot task allocation problem (MRTA) as an extension of the multiple travelling salesmen (MTSP) problem. This extension to the MTSP considers operational factors representing physical limitations, the suitability of each robot, and inter-task dependencies. The task allocation algorithm calculates an optimized distribution of tasks such that a global objective function is minimized to simultaneously reduce total cost and ensure an even distribution of tasks among the agents. Once an optimized distribution of tasks is calculated, the motion planning component calculates collision-free velocities to drive the robots to their goal poses to facilitate task execution in a shared environment. The proposed TCF was implemented on teams of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Test cases considered scenarios where the UAVs executed aerial observation tasks while UGVs executed simulated patrol and delivery tasks. The solutions were tested using real-life robots as a proof of concept and to validate simulations. The robots' kinematic and computer vision models were combined with the task coordination framework to facilitate the implementation. Large-scale simulations involving greater numbers of robots operating in a larger area were also conducted to demonstrate the task coordination framework's versatility and efficacy.

Sund Birsta har fått förfrågan av sina kunder att utveckla ett system för automatiskmärkning av stångbuntar. Detta sker idag manuellt med en bultsvets vilket medför flera nackdelar, bland annat höga personalkostnader och dålig arbetsmiljö. Detta examensarbete är en början till detta system genom framtagning av en konceptuell CAD-modell av ett verktyg som monteras på industriroboten IRB 4600-40/2.55 från ABB. Det förberedande arbetet och konceptutvecklingen följde processen från Ulrich och Eppingers bok om produktutveckling. Bland annat gjordes en litteraturstudie där fyra nuvarande lösningar undersöktes och framtagning av ideal- och marginalvärden som verktyget ska uppfylla. Efter konceptgenerering, screening och scoring av fästmetoder blev det vinnande konceptet bultsvetsning. Val av bultsvets undersöktes på HBS hemsida för att hitta ett som bäst passade användningsområdet. Detta blev svetshuvud KAH 412, svetsenhet CDMi 3202 och bultmatare VBZ-3. Efter undersökning av gripdon bestämdes det att ett vakuumgripdon var mest lämpat för att förfytta och hålla fast den platta märkbrickan. Verktyget och industriroboten sattes in i en main assembly där även enklare extra komponenter, så som transportband, skapades för att bygga ett komplett lösningsförslag. Det slutgiltiga verktyget uppfyller alla marginalvärden utom ett och vissa idealvärden från kravspecifkationen. Fästmetoden och gripdonet är likt tidigare lösningar vilket kan bero på omedveten påverkan vid beslut eller att detta koncept är den optimala lösningen. / Many customers of SundBirsta have requested a solution for automatic tagging of bundles of rods. Today this is done by manual stud welding which has multiple disadvantages, for example high personnel cost and a bad work environment for the workers. This master thesis is the frst step towards a complete system, where a conceptual model of a tool for the robot IRB 4600-40/2.55 from ABB, is developed. Many of the product development steps followed the book from Ulrich and Eppinger. Some of the steps were a literature study for four past solutions and development of a requirements specifcation with mandatory and preferable values. Concept generation, screening and scoring of methods to fasten the tag, resulted in the winning method, stud welding. Research about diferent stud welders were made to fnd the one best suited for the application. The resulting welder was the weld head KAH 412, welding unit CDMi 3202 and the automatic stud feeder VBZ-3 from HBS. Diferent grippers to transport and hold the tag were researched and the one best suited for the application were a vacuum gripper. The tool and robot were added to a main assembly, together with some additional components, like a conveyor belt, to create a better understanding of the solution. The fnal concept of the tool fulflled all the obligatory values, except for one, and some of the ideal values from the requirement specifcation. Many of the solutions from the literature study probably used both stud welding and a vacuum gripper, which is the same as the resulting concept. This could mean that the concept was either subconsciously infuenced by the previous products or that this is in fact the most optimal solution.