Author name cluster

Ross Mead

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8 papers

2 author rows

IROS Conference 2017 Conference Paper

"Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? ": Human proxemic preferences for recognizing robot gestures in physical reality and virtual reality

Sahba El-Shawa
Noah Kraemer
Sara Sheikholeslami
Ross Mead
Elizabeth A. Croft

The use of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) for studying Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) offers many benefits, including decreased cost and risk as well as increased experimental control and repeatability. Previous work has shown that people reliably underestimate distances in VR; however, the effect of this underestimation on gesture recognition has not been characterized. This work contributes to the validation of immersive VR as a platform for HRI investigation and simulation for training in industry. A matched pair of studies compared the location preferences of human participants when viewing gestures generated by a robot in both virtual and physical environments. Participants were asked to select up to three optimal locations within a bounded region at which they perceived the robot's gesture to be the clearest. We found that the use of VR did increase the preferred proxemic distance (χ 2 (1) = 18. 046, p <; 0. 001) by approximately 642 ± 96mm. The difference in viewing angle between the virtual and physical environments was not significant, with a 95% confidence interval limiting the difference within -8. 6° to +7. 9°. Observations relating gesture features to optimal viewing locations are also presented.

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IROS Conference 2015 Conference Paper

Proxemics and performance: Subjective human evaluations of autonomous sociable robot distance and social signal understanding

Ross Mead
Maja J. Mataric

An objective of an autonomous sociable robot is to meet the needs and preferences of a human user. However, this can sometimes be at the expense of the robot's own ability to understand social signals produced by the user. In particular, human preferences of distance (proxemics) to the robot can have significant impact on the performance rates of its automated speech and gesture recognition systems. In this work, we investigated how people perceive a sociable robot based on its performance at different locations. We performed an experiment in which a robot's ability to understand social signals was artificially attenuated across distance; robot maximum, minimum, and average performance rates were also varied. Participants (N = 160) instructed a robot using speech and pointing gestures, and then responded to a questionnaire to provide their subjective evaluations of the robot. We identified significant relationships between robot performance and user perceptions of robot competence, anthropomorphism, engagement, likability, and technology adoption; we identified no relationship between human-robot distance and subjective measures, which contrasts related work. Our results have significant implications for autonomous sociable robot design.

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AAAI Conference 2010 Conference Paper

A Distributed Method for Evaluating Properties of a Robot Formation

Brent Beer
Ross Mead
Jerry Weinberg

As a robot formation increases in size or explores places where it is difficult for a human operator to interact, autonomous control becomes critical. We propose a distributed autonomous method for evaluating properties of multi-robot systems, and then discuss how this information can be applied to improve performance with respect to a given operation. We present this as an extension of our previous work on robot formations; however, the techniques described could be adapted to other multi-robot systems.

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AAAI Conference 2010 Conference Paper

Distributed Auction-Based Initialization of Mobile Robot Formations

Robert Long
Ross Mead
Jerry Weinberg

The field of multi-robot coordination, specifically robot formation control, is rapidly expanding, with many applications proposed. In our previous work, we considered the problem of establishing and maintaining a formation of robots given an already connected network. We now propose a distributed auction-based method to autonomously initialize and reorganize the network structure of a formation of robots.

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IROS Conference 2009 Conference Paper

Fault-tolerant formations of mobile robots

Ross Mead
Robert Louis Long
Jerry B. Weinberg

The goal of a robot formation control architecture is to get a number of robots into a specified form. To be effective and practical, the control architecture must be able to transition a group of robots from an initial swarm to a final formation. It must then be able to handle real-world events that could disrupt the formation, thus, requiring formation repair, obstacle avoidance, and changes in the formation. In previous work, we presented a distributed, reactive cellular automata-based formation control architecture capable of controlling any number of robots in formation at once. In this paper, we examine our architecture with respect to necessary characteristics to handle real-world occurrences. To address issues of formation repair and obstacle avoidance, the control architecture is extended by a distributed auctioning method that allows the robot formation to reconfigure autonomously.

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AAAI Conference 2008 Short Paper

2-Dimensional Cellular Automata Approach for Robot Grid Formations

Ross Mead

One potentially cost-effective approach to harvesting solar power from space is the use of thousands of individual robots moving in formation, each with a piece of solar panel attached, to form a solar panel array. In previous work, we demonstrated an algorithm that treats a group of robots as a 1-dimensional cellular automaton, which is able to establish formations defined by a single mathematical function. We now extend the algorithm to establish grid formations.

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AAAI Conference 2007 Conference Paper

An Implementation of Robot Formations using Local Interactions

Ross Mead

Coordinating a group of robots to work in formation has been suggested for a number of tasks, such as urban searchand-rescue, traffic control, and harvesting solar energy. Algorithms for controlling robot formations have been inspired by biological and organizational systems. In our approach to robot formation control, each robot is treated like a cell in a cellular automaton, where local interactions between robots result in a global organization. The algorithm has been demonstrated in simulation. In this paper, we present a physical implementation.

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AAAI Conference 2006 Short Paper

Algorithms for Control and Interaction of Large Formations of Robots

Ross Mead

NSF and NASA sponsored a workshop to discuss harvesting solar power in space. One solution considered was the use of a swarm of robots to form a solar reflector. How can these robots organize to form a large parabolic structure and be effectively controlled? The approach of this project is to treat the formation as a lattice of cells. Each cell is in one of a given state governed by a set of rules. A command that indicates the geometric formation is sent to a seed robot; the formation would then transform as neighbors attain their calculated relationship based on the formation definition.

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