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International Conference on Social Robotics

ICSR 2016: Social Robotics pp 72–82Cite as

Decision-Theoretic Human-Robot Interaction: Designing Reasonable and Rational Robot Behavior

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 9979))

Abstract

Autonomous robots are moving out of research labs and factory cages into public spaces; people’s homes, workplaces, and lives. A key design challenge in this migration is how to build autonomous robots that people want to use and can safely collaborate with in undertaking complex tasks. In order for people to work closely and productively with robots, robots must behave in way that people can predict and anticipate. Robots chose their next action using the classical sense-think-act processing cycle. Robotists design actions and action choice mechanisms for robots. This design process determines robot behaviors, and how well people are able to interact with the robot. Crafting how a robot will choose its next action is critical in designing social robots for interaction and collaboration. This paper identifies reasonableness and rationality, two key concepts that are well known in Choice Theory, that can be used to guide the robot design process so that the resulting robot behaviors are easier for humans to predict, and as a result it is more enjoyable for humans to interact and collaborate. Designers can use the notions of reasonableness and rationality to design action selection mechanisms to achieve better robot designs for human-robot interaction. We show how Choice Theory can be used to prove that specific robot behaviors are reasonable and/or rational, thus providing a formal, useful and powerful design guide for developing robot behaviors that people find more intuitive, predictable and fun, resulting in more reliable and safe human-robot interaction and collaboration.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. QCIS, University of Technology Sydney and Codex, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

    Mary-Anne Williams

Authors
  1. Mary-Anne Williams
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Correspondence to Mary-Anne Williams .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Indiana, USA

    Arvin Agah

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    John-John Cabibihan

  3. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

    Ayanna M. Howard

  4. Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, University Carlos III de Madrid, madrid, Spain

    Miguel A. Salichs

  5. Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Hongsheng He

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Williams, MA. (2016). Decision-Theoretic Human-Robot Interaction: Designing Reasonable and Rational Robot Behavior. In: Agah, A., Cabibihan, JJ., Howard, A., Salichs, M., He, H. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9979. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47437-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47437-3_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47436-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47437-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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