Engagement Rules for Human-Robot Collaborative Interaction

This paper reports on research on developing the ability for robots to engage with humans in a collaborative conversation for hosting activities. It defines the engagement process in collaborative conversation and reports on our progress in creating a robot to perform hosting activities. The paper then presents the analysis of a study of humanhuman ”look tracking” and discusses rules that will allow a robot to track humans so that engagement is maintained. This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonprofit educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright c ©Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc., 2003 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Engagement Rules for Human-Robot Collaborative Interactions Candace L. Sidner Christopher Lee Neal Lesh Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories 201 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02139 {Sidner, Lee, Lesh}@merl.com Abstract This paper reports on research on developing the ability for robots to engage with humans in a collaborative conversation for hosting activities. It defines the engagement process in collaborative conversation, and reports on our progress in creating a robot to perform hosting activities.. The paper then presents the analysis of a study of humanhuman “look tracking” and discusses rules that will allow a robot to track humans so that engagement is maintained. This paper reports on research on developing the ability for robots to engage with humans in a collaborative conversation for hosting activities. It defines the engagement process in collaborative conversation, and reports on our progress in creating a robot to perform hosting activities.. The paper then presents the analysis of a study of humanhuman “look tracking” and discusses rules that will allow a robot to track humans so that engagement is maintained.