Auditory Display of Directions and States for Mobile Systems

Auditory displays for mobile systems, such as service robots, have been developed. The design of directional sounds and of additional sounds for robot states (e.g., Heavy Load), as well as the design of more complicated robot sound tracks are explained. Basic musical elements and robot movement sounds have been combined. Two experimental studies, on the understandability of the directional sounds and the robot state sounds as well as on the auditory perception of intended robot trajectories in a simulated supermarket scenario, are described. Subjective evaluations of sound characteristics such as urgency, expressiveness, and annoyance have been performed by nonmusicians and musicians. These experimental results are compared with the diagrams which have been computed with two wavelet techniques for time-frequency analyses.