SIROS: A Framework for Human-Robot Interaction Research in Virtual Worlds

Simulated Environments for Human-Robot Interaction Research PC-based virtual world simulations provide a light weight solution to perform Human-Robot Interaction research on robots that are still in early stages of development, or even purely hypothetical robots. Researchers can use simulators to collect data to build and evaluate interaction models at the same time as core components of the real-world robot are built and integrated. Once the real robot becomes robust enough, the models trained on simulators can be applied for further experiments. Byron and Fosler-Lussier (2006), Orkin and Roy (2007), and Koulouri and Lauria (2009) present research conducted on such simulated worlds. However, in these prior systems, the situation does not dynamically change (besides the human-controlled character), making these systems unsuitable to the study of the dynamic aspects of situated interaction.