2023, Schmiedel, Theresa, Zhong, Jia, Eyssel, Friederike

Even though a broad range of social robots are currently available on the market, social robots are not yet an integral part of companies, healthcare providers, or public institutions. This might be due to the fact that the prevalent developer perspective immanently focuses on technological advancements, whereas a human-centered view remains underrepresented. In this paper, we argue that a human-centered perspective which integrates values and beliefs of relevant technology stakeholders needs to complement existing approaches to social robot design. Therefore, we propose to apply value sensitive design (VSD) to improve the process of social robot development and design. Even though VSD has become popular in recent years and it represents an established approach to foster innovative technologies, it has not yet been widely applied in the context of social robotics. Concretely, in this paper we will outline the added value of using VSD for social robots and we will explain how to utilize this methodology to enrich research and practice in social robotics.

2021, Applewhite, Timothy, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf

Multimodal interaction is an essential prerequisite for affective human-robot engagement. Research on bidirectional, affective multimodal interaction systems investigates systems that recognize a user's affect and generate emotional response based on this user's affect. The presented work investigates a novel bidirectional, affective multimodal interaction system using a social robot and an open-source dialogue system framework, developing a prototype based here on Pepper and Rasa. Compared to special lab robotics systems, the proposed system is more attainable, while incorporating, alongside speech and facial expression, eye gaze as one of the major features to convey emotions as input channels. The system generates and emulates emotional output behaviors based on a user's affect using speech, gestures and emojis. This paper describes the concrete implementation and evaluation of the proposed system. Results of the evaluation show that, although the recognition accuracy of the input channels perform differently well, the system can derive well-defined rule-based emotional output behaviors with a high multimodal accuracy rate in the given test scenarios.

2020, Schmiedel, Theresa, Jäger, Janine, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf

The integration of social robots in organizations is on the rise. In the future, an increase in the application of physically embodied robots who socially interact and collaborate with humans is expected. In this chapter, we outline the organizational contexts in which current research examines social robots and point out cultural challenges regarding their implementation in the workplace. We suggest that the successful integration of social robots in organizations requires a cultural fit between values embedded in social robots and values lived in the organizational context in which the robot is deployed. In addition, we propose an agenda for future research that addresses the associated cultural challenges of introducing social robots into organizational contexts.

2018, Dornberger, Rolf, Inglese, Terry, Korkut, Safak, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf

2023, Schmiedel, Theresa, Jäger, Janine, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf

Die Integration von sozialen Robotern in Unternehmen nimmt stetig zu. Das bedeutet, dass es in Zukunft einen vermehrten Einsatz von physisch verkörperten Robotern geben wird, die mit Menschen sozial interagieren und zusammenarbeiten. In diesem Kapitel skizzieren wir die organisatorischen Kontexte, in denen die aktuelle Forschung soziale Roboter untersucht, und weisen auf kulturelle Herausforderungen hinsichtlich ihrer Implementierung am Arbeitsplatz hin. Wir legen nahe, dass die erfolgreiche Integration von sozialen Robotern in Organisationen eine kulturelle Passung zwischen den in sozialen Robotern eingebetteten Werten und den im organisatorischen Kontext, in dem der Roboter eingesetzt wird, gelebten Werten erfordert. Darüber hinaus schlagen wir eine Agenda für zukünftige Forschung vor, die sich mit den wertebasierten kulturellen Herausforderungen bei der Einführung von sozialen Robotern in organisatorischen Kontexten befasst.

2021, Sabbioni, Giordano, Zhong, Jia, Jäger, Janine, Schmiedel, Theresa, Ahram, Tareq, Taiar, Redha

The present study demonstrates the ongoing development of a service robot application in a campus library through the application of Design Science Research (DSR) combined with user-centered design (UCD). In particular, we involved librarians and co-created an application solution addressing two use cases: giving directions to a desired subject area/book and providing recommendations for an event/book. Additionally, we involved potential end users to evaluate the robot artifact through an onsite usability test (N = 14) already within the design cycle. This process resulted in a successful application of the robot artifact for the identified use cases and shows feasibility of combining DSR with UCD.

2019, Zhong, Jia, Schmiedel, Theresa, Dornberger, Rolf, Salichs, Miguel A., Ge, Shuzhi Sam, Ivanova Barakova, Emilia, Cabibihan, John-John, Wagner, Alan R., Castro-González, Álvaro, He, Hongsheng

Slow responses of social robots cause user frustration in human robot communication. This paper investigates how far the gaze behavior of a robot, meaning the way the robot looks at its conversation partner, influences the perceived delay of a robot’s response in human-robot conversations. To enhance a natural conversation pattern, a gaze behavior was designed and implemented into a humanoid robot. A within-subject experiment involving 31 test subjects was designed with two conditions (with and without gaze behavior). The results generally show a positive correlation between the gaze behavior that the robot exhibits and the perceived responsiveness of the robot (in the condition with gaze behavior). However, the perceived responsiveness is the same in both conditions. One reason for this finding may be that the response time of the robot might have been generally too short to identify an effect in the experi mental setting. Future research can directly build on our research to assess the relation between gaze behavior and perceived responsiveness in further detail and draw upon the finding that gaze behavior generally plays an important role with regard to the perceived responsiveness of a robot. Robot designers can also build on our research and consider both gaze behavior and additional factors to address a perceived delay in a robot’s response.

2022, Zhong, Jia, Mürset, Nicolas, Jäger, Janine, Schmiedel, Theresa

Like in human-human interaction, people tend to interact in human-robot settings with those they like. Therefore, it is important to understand what variables affect robot likeability. The present study aims at providing insights into how robots’ anthropomorphism, voice, gestures, approaching behaviors as well as perceived warmth and competence play a role in robot likeability. We conducted an online survey (N=191) studying two humanoid robots with different characteristics. Our exploratory study empirically indicates that the investigated variables are significantly correlated with robot likeability for both robots but with differing strengths. Further, the likeability of the two robots is predicted by differing variables, with robot voice being the only common predictor for both robots.

2021, Zhong, Jia, Schmiedel, Theresa

As social robots are increasingly entering into the real world, developing a viable robot application has become highly important. While a growing body of research has acknowledged that the integration of an agile development methodology with user-centered design (UCD) provides advantages for both organizations and end users, integrating UCD in an agile methodology has been a challenging endeavor. The present paper illustrates a user-centered agile approach that integrates user perspectives through formative usability testing during an agile development process of a robot application and thus differentiates from most robot application evaluations, which conduct summative usability testing (i.e., they quantitatively test goal achievement after technological developments). Through an active involvement of organization and end users, we were able to develop a social robot application that is both useful and usable. Therefore, the illustrated approach is particularly suitable for developing real-world robot applications while ensuring the desired high level of usability.

2018, Zhong, Jia, Dornberger, Rolf, Hanne, Thomas

This paper investigates the functionality and quality of the implementation of a search and target surrounding swarm robotic algorithm using physical swarm robots named Kilobots. The implementation was developed and tested in the simulator V-REP, then transferred onto the actually running Kilobots: Ten Kilobots were used for the experiment, where one Kilobot acts as the target and nine Kilobots act as the searchers. The algorithm allows the searchers to swarm out to find the target while avoiding collisions with other searchers, to orbit around other searchers, which are closer to the target, and finally to surround the target once it is found. The results of the implementation using the physical Kilobots are compared with the results of two adjusted computer simulations. Differences between the simulations and the real robot implementation are investigated: Discrepancies regarding the locomotion and the communication capabilities are identified and discussed.