CoBot Studio VR: A Virtual Reality Game Environment for Transdisciplinary Research on Interpretability and Trust in Human-Robot Collaboration
Sprache des Titels:
Englisch
Original Buchtitel:
VAM-HRI 2021
Original Kurzfassung:
With the rise of collaborative robots (cobots) in industrial
workplaces, designing these robots to meet the needs of their
human co-workers is becoming increasingly important.
Psychological theories and recent results from HRI research
suggest interpretability and predictability of cobot behavior as key
factors for the establishment of trust and collaborative task success.
However, it is not yet clear which robotic intention signals are
easily interpretable for whom and how they might impact user
experience in varying situations. Therefore, the transdisciplinary
team of the research project CoBot Studio created an innovative
virtual reality (VR) environment in which the effectiveness of
different light- and motion-based cobot signals can be
systematically evaluated (i) in various collaborative minigames, (ii)
without safety concerns, (iii) under randomized controlled
conditions, and (iiii) without the need to make actual hardware
adjustments to a robot. This paper introduces functionalities and the
system architecture of the highly versatile CoBot Studio
research environment, presents an initial application, and discusses
methodological benefits of using immersive VR games for research
into human-robot collaboration.
Forschungs-