Illah Nourbakhsh

The Mobot Museum Series Robots

Illah NourbakhshCMU/Robotics Institute | 16-899D Fall 2005

Illah Nourbakhsh

Goals

24 x 7 Unsupervised Robot AutonomyDiagnostic state identification & behavior

HRI Iterative Testing and RefinementInteraction with truly naïve users

Educational Efficacy AnalysisClear, quantifiable educational objective

Long Timescale Deployment (> 1 year)Nilsson’s robotics grand challenge

Illah Nourbakhsh

Related Work

Contemporary museum robot effortsRhino, Bonn (Germany)Minerva, Washington (USA)Traveling Robotics exhibitsMany others…

Recent public interactive human-scale robotsSwiss Expo: EPFL’s RoboxGerman Expo: roving multimedia robotsMany others…

Illah Nourbakhsh

Human-scale InteractionGrange, Meyer, Soto, Kunz, Willeke

Educational tours in public spaces.

Illah Nourbakhsh

Human-scale InteractionGrange, Meyer, Soto, Kunz, Willeke

Educational tours in public spaces.

Illah Nourbakhsh

Human-scale InteractionGrange, Meyer, Soto, Kunz, Willeke

Educational tours in public spaces.

Illah Nourbakhsh

Interaction Design Process

Educational design: education divisionContent development: production companyBehavior specification: education divisionFormative evaluations and re-design

robot observation, human observationinterviews, written tests

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Robot Components

Nomadic XR-4000 basePentium-scale running LinuxVision, ultrasonic, ir, tactile8 lead-acid deep-cycle batteries

12V, ~25AH each~ 5 hrs endurance

Customized interaction “top”LCD + DVD media systemInteraction button(s)High-quality speaker system

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Chips

Carnegie Museum of Natural HistoryAutonomy

5 years, > 500 km navigated, auto-dockingMTBF convergence at 1 weekProactive health state identification

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Chips - BBC

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Sweetlips

Hall of North American Wildlife3 years, > 185 km navigatedTour theme interaction

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Joe Historybot

Heinz History Center2 years, > 160 kmTouchscreen, quiz,

speech generation

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Adam 40-80

Free-agent robot for hireMore than 30 days of work

finishedRepublican National Conv.Democratic National Conv.

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Analysis of Evolution

Robot Autonomy & VisionInteraction and Education Efficacy

Illah Nourbakhsh

Robot Autonomy Trends

Convergence of safety levelRedundant case-based minimal vectorsPath-level control as on-line search in safety zones

Diagnostic TransparencyVision camera + gdbTrends toward specificity of state identificationUndo – then - Retry methods

NavigationMetrical route-level constraints on safe areasTopological landmark-based route mapExplicit confidence measured on visual fiducials

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Landmarks: Visual Fiducials

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Human-Robot Interaction Trends

Lower soliloquoy durationCaricatured exaggeration of awarenessInteraction bandwidth & specificityUnidirectional – bidirectional - active queryModifying human behavior

social inclusion experiments

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Human-Robot Interaction: Awareness

Chips: Push my button to start.Joe: Hey! Hi! Hello!Adam: Look out, here I come!

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Human-Robot Interaction: Retention

Chips: 3-minute dino-talksSweetlips: Which tour do you want?Joe: Learn to speak Pittsburghese! Guess how

much that bell weighs?Adam: Participate in a poll. Test your knowledge

of presidential politics!

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Measuring Interaction Performance

1 Quantifiable Observationtime on task: 74% at 5 – 15 min.peak ages: 5 – 12 ; 25 – 34gender: 20% more girls

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Measuring Interaction Performance

2 Educational Efficacy.5 .9 All dinosaurs lived during same period..5 .7 All dinosaurs were huge animals..5 .8 Other animals lived on the Earth with din..4 .8 All dinosaurs were carnivorous..4 .7 Scientists agree how to assemble bones..4 .5 All bones in Dinosaur hall are real.

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RAVEN in the National AviaryRobot and educator collaboration

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Conclusion

Autonomy: general methodology leads to robust behavior

HRI: We influence both robotic and human behavior with proper design

Project Closure: the shortcomings of robotic tour guides.

Illah Nourbakhsh

Influencing Human Behavior…