Physical agents that can autonomously generate engaging, life-like behaviour will lead to more responsive and interesting robots and other autonomous systems. Although many advances have been made for one-to-one interactions in well controlled settings, future physical agents should be capable of interacting with humans in natural settings, including group interaction. In order to generate engaging behaviours, the autonomous system must first be able to estimate its human partners' engagement level. In this paper, we propose an approach for estimating engagement from behaviour and use the measure within a reinforcement learning framework to learn engaging interactive behaviours. The proposed approach is implemented in an interactive sculptural system in a museum setting. We compare the learning system to a baseline using pre-scripted interactive behaviours. Analysis based on sensory data and survey data shows that adaptable behaviours within a perceivable and understandable range can achieve higher engagement and likeability.
Interactive artworks are outcomes of combining arts and engineering, and have brought a new research direction for understanding HRI, especially with non-anthropomorphic robots, not only from the robotics perspective but also from an artistic perspective. LAS in this paper and previous installations @cite_47 are examples of such immersive interactive systems that promote roboticists' and architects' understanding of lifelike interactive behaviour. Other examples include @cite_57 , who investigated visitors' interaction and observation behaviours with mobile pianos in a museum. @cite_48 @cite_30 studied flying cubes in multiple publicly accessible spaces where flying cubes play the role of living creatures. In @cite_13 , roboticists collaborated with a professional dancer to design interactive dancing robots. @cite_58 created spatial interactions with immersive virtual reality technology. @cite_22 studied dancing quadcopters, without an interactive component. Close collaboration between artists and roboticists has been fostering the creation of richer modes of interaction and extending the scope of studies in HRI. Most works mentioned here rely heavily on the design of choreographers, while in this paper we add adaptability on top of choreography by learning engaging behaviour based on the action space defined by choreographers.
@cite_30 @cite_22 @cite_48 @cite_57 @cite_47 @cite_58 @cite_13
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Imagine a troupe of dancers flying together across a big open stage, their movement choreographed to the rhythm of the music. Their performance is both coordinated and skilled; the dancers are well rehearsed, and the choreography well suited to their abilities. They are no ordinary dancers, however, and this is not an ordinary stage. The performers are quadrocopters, and the stage is the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena, a state-of-the-art mobile testbed for aerial motion control research (Figure 1). Art installations involving robotic artifacts provide an opportunity to examine human relationships with robots designed solely for the purpose of sustaining evocative behaviours. In an attempt to determine the behavioural characteristics and personality traits attributed by a human to a robotic artifact, we investigated an audience’s experience of an installation that presented three robotic artifacts moving autonomously in an exhibition space. In order to describe the audience’s experience, we present two studies that revealed the psychological attributions spontaneously produced from observing the robots, and visitors’ physical exploration patterns inside the exhibition. We propose a psychological profile for the artwork, and a tentative organization for the attribution process. Using a cluster analysis performed on visitors’ trajectories inside the installation, we highlight four different exploration and interaction heuristics characterized by patterns of approach or withdrawal, passive observation and exploration. Canada’s Living Architecture Systems Group (LASG) combines scientists, engineers, architects and artists working together to create large-scale prototypes of immersive architectural spaces with qualities that come strikingly close to those of living systems. Working in interdis- ciplinary groups combining architects, engineers and scientists, LASG is building environments that can move, respond, and learn; environments that renew themselves with chemical exchanges and that are adaptive and empathic toward their inhabitants. This paper provides a detailed review of the history and current research of the group, including a detailed case study of Epiphyte Chamber, a complex immersive environment presented at the new Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, 2014. We also include a context of precedents in the rapidly evolving field of responsive architecture, and a description of the current implementation of a new proprioceptive distributed control system employing a curiosity-based learning algorithm. Also included are detailed reviews of industrial design methods and digital fabrication of specialized structures and mechanisms. The paper is illustrated with industrial design drawings, interactive system design documents, and photography of a series of current environments and test-beds authored by the group. We hope that this presentation offers an inspiring vision, and associated working methods, for the future of the built environment. The AlloSphere provides multiuser spatial interaction through a curved surround screen and surround sound. Two projects illustrate how researchers employed the AlloSphere to investigate the combined use of personal-device displays and the shared display. Another two projects combined multiuser interaction with multiagent systems. These projects point to directions for future ensemble-style collaborative interaction. "Time to Compile"1 is the result of an extended in-house residency of an artist in a robotics lab. The piece explores the temporal and spatial dislocations enabled by digital technology and the internet and plays with human responses to articulated machines (robots) in that setting. The audience journeys through a suspended, disparate landscape that aims to reconcile these responses to technology and machines. This proposal offers to bring an excerpt of the piece, live dance performance surrounded by videos of robots created in the lab, to MOCO. Additionally, an interactive installation could be produced if MOCO has the timing bandwidth to offer this more involved setup.