Robots And Communication

This book explores communication between humans and robots. Using a range of communication theories, it highlights how each theory provides a different perspective on the communication that occurs. The analysis of human interactions with a variety of forms of robot suggests new ways to perceive what communication, and being a communicator, entails.

This book explores communication between humans and robots. Using a range of communication theories, it highlights how each theory provides a different perspective on the communication that occurs. The analysis of human interactions with a variety of forms of robot suggests new ways to perceive what communication, and being a communicator, entails.

The volume offers multiple perspectives on the way in which people encounter and think about the future. Drawing on the perspectives of history, literature, philosophy and communication studies, an international ensemble of experts offer a kaleidoscope of topics to provoke and enlighten the reader. The authors seek to understand the daily lived experience of ordinary people as they encounter new technology as well as the way people reflect on the significance and meaning of those technologies. The approach of the volume stresses the quotidian quality of reality and ordinary understandings of reality as understood by people from all walks of life. Providing expert analysis and sophisticated understanding, the focus of attention gravitates toward how people make meaning out of change, particularly when the change occurs at the level of social technologies- the devices that modify and amplify our modes of communication with others. The volume is organised into three main sections: The phenomena of new communication technology in people's lives from a contemporary viewpoint; the meaning of robots and AI as they play an increasing role in people's experience and; broader issues concerning the operational, sociological and philosophical implications of people as they address a technology driven future.

This book serves as an introduction to HMC as a specific area of study within communication and to the research possibilities of HMC. The research presented here focuses on people's interactions with multiple technologies used within different contexts from a variety of epistemological and methodological approaches.

This volume contains 50 papers presented at the 12th International Symposium of Robotics Research, which took place October 2005 in San Francisco, CA. Coverage includes: physical human-robot interaction, humanoids, mechanisms and design, simultaneous localization and mapping, field robots, robotic vision, robot design and control, underwater robotics, learning and adaptive behavior, networked robotics, and interfaces and interaction.

Embodied agents play an increasingly important role in cognitive interaction technology. The two main types of embodied agents are virtual humans inhabiting simulated environments and humanoid robots inhabiting the real world. So far research on embodied communicative agents has mainly explored their potential for practical applications. However, the design of communicative artificial agents can also be of great heuristic value for the scientific study of communication. It allows researchers to isolate, implement, and test essential properties of inter-agent communications in operational models. Modeling communication with robots and virtual humans thus involves the vision of using communicative machines as research tools. Artificial systems that reproduce certain aspects of natural, multimodal communication help to elucidate the internal mechanisms that give rise to different aspects of communication. In short, constructing embodied agents who are able to communicate may help us to understand the principles of human communication. As a comprehensive theme, “Embodied Communication in Humans and Machines” was taken up by an international research group hosted by Bielefeld University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF – Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung) from October 2005 through September 2006. The overarching goal of this research year was to develop an integrated perspective of embodiment in communication, establishing bridges between lower-level, sensorimotor functions and a range of higher-level, communicative functions involving language and bodily action. The present volume grew out of a workshop that took place during April 5–8, 2006 at the ZiF as a part of the research year on embodied communication.

This book is a collection of high-quality research articles. The book includes topics specific to the emerging areas of control for robotic systems, wireless communication, and development of embedded systems for robotic applications. The book integrates three important aspects of automation, namely (i) communication, (ii) control, and (iii) embedded design for robotic applications. This book is unique as it provides a unified framework for analysis, design, and deployment of the robotic applications across various engineering and non-engineering disciplines including the three primary aspects mentioned above. Furthermore, the emerging research and development work pertaining to the deployment of intelligent, nonlinear, and embedded control for robotic system for non-standard operating environment due to the widespread application of robotics technology for societal benefit is also a focal point of the book.

Gaze in Human-Robot Communication is a volume collecting recent research studying gaze behaviour in human-robot interaction (HRI). The selected articles draw inspiration from related research into gaze in human-human interaction in fields ranging from ethnography to neuroscience. The major themes of these articles include: the experimental investigation of human responses to robot gaze, the investigation of the impact of coordinating gaze acts with speech, and the development of hardware and software technologies for enabling robot gaze. This volume provides an excellent introduction to the depth and breadth of this growing research area in HRI. The highly interdisciplinary nature of the work presented should make it of interest both to robotics researchers and to researchers from other fields with an interest in the role of gaze in communication. Originally published in Interaction Studies Vol. 14:3 (2013).