Task allocation is a fundamental problem that any multirobot system must address. Numerous multi-robot task allocation schemes have been proposed over the past decade. A vast majority of these schemes address the problem of assigning a single robot to each task. However as the complexity of multi-robot tasks increases, often situations arise where multiple robot teams need to be assigned to a s...

To act autonomously and robustly in complex environments, mobile robots require task planning to adapt to the given situation. With the growing capabilities of robot hardware and software this is becoming increasingly important. Yet, only few integrated robotic systems exist. This thesis attempts to make a next step towards robust plan-based robot control. For this, it first describes how the H...

In the present experiment, we tested the impact of the gender typicality of a human–robot interaction (HRI) task on the user’s performance during HRI, and on evaluation and acceptance of the robot. N = 73 participants (38 males and 35 females) performed either a stereotypically male or a stereotypically female task while being instructed by either a ‘male’ or a ‘female’ robot. Our results revea...

In the field of cooperative robotics, task allocation is an issue receiving much attention. When researchers design, build, and use cooperative multi-robot system, they invariably try to answer the question of which robot should execute which task. This is in fact a multirobot task allocation problem (MRTA). The task allocation problem addresses the question of finding the task-to-robot assignm...

− As a novel learning method, reinforced learning by which a robot acquires control rules through trial and error has gotten a lot of attention. However, it is quite difficult for robots to acquire control rules by reinforcement learning in real space because many learning trials are needed to achieve the control rules; the robot itself may lose control, or there may be safety problems with the...

This study investigated a seven sessions interaction between peer-tutor robot and Dutch preschoolers (5 years old) during which the children learned English. We examined whether children’s engagement differed when interacting with tablet using iconic gestures, no gestures only tablet. Two types were annotated (task engagement) novel coding scheme based on an existing used in kindergartens. The ...

BIWEN, ZHU. Design of Etiquette for Patient Robot Interaction in a Medicine Delivery Task. (Under the direction of Dr. David B. Kaber). Robots are currently being developed to perform medicine delivery tasks for patients in healthcare environments (e.g., hospitals and nursing homes). It is important to ensure that robots are able to interact with patients in ways that patients find comfortable ...