Human Robot Interaction

All technical systems have some form of interface. They can range from a start button to press to very elaborate interaction systems involving multiple sensory modalities. The interaction with the system is often overlooked by the ones designing the core technical parts of the system. Systems become more and more complex technically and powerful. A good interface bridges the gap to the user / operator and enables intuitive, flexible and efficient use of the systems.

Human Robot Interaction (HRI) is a special branch of Human Machine Interaction (HMI) where the machine is a robot. In this module we will look at multi-modal and embodied robot interaction. We will do so using an agent called Furhat made by Furhat Robotics. It is important to keep in mind that robots still represent a very small part of all systems that we interact with but they offer an interesting use case where many aspects common of general HMI can be illustrated in additional to those specific to a physical robot.

I am furhat Links to an external site.

Furhat - a robot that plays quiz games Links to an external site.

In the assignment you will work with a virtual version of Furhat.

The introduction to the Furhat system also gives an introduction to interaction and the design of such systems. Start by reading https://docs.furhat.io/introduction (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Now work through Getting Started with Furhat