SwarmHaptics: Haptic Display with Swarm Robots

This paper seeks to better understand the use of haptic feedback in abstract, ubiquitous robotic interfaces. We introduce and provide preliminary evaluations of SwarmHaptics, a new type of haptic display using a swarm of small, wheeled robots. These robots move on a flat surface and apply haptic patterns to the user's hand, arm, or any other accessible body parts. We explore the design space of SwarmHaptics including individual and collective robot parameters, and demonstrate example scenarios including remote social touch using the Zooids platform. To gain insights into human perception, we applied haptic patterns with varying number of robots, force type, frequency, and amplitude and obtained user's perception in terms of emotion, urgency, and Human-Robot Interaction metrics. In a separate elicitation study, users generated a set of haptic patterns for social touch. The results from the two studies help inform how users perceive and generate haptic patterns with SwarmHaptics.

[1]  M. Mori.  THE UNCANNY VALLEY , 2020, The Monster Theory Reader.

[2]  Darren Guinness,et al.  Exploring the Design of Audio-Kinetic Graphics for Education , 2018, ICMI.

[3]  Alanson P. Sample,et al.  Force Jacket: Pneumatically-Actuated Jacket for Embodied Haptic Experiences , 2018, CHI.

[4]  Ehud Sharlin,et al.  Personal Space Intrusion in Human-Robot Collaboration , 2018, HRI.

[5]  Muhammad Abdullah,et al.  HapticDrone: An Encountered-Type Kinesthetic Haptic Interface with Controllable Force Feedback: Initial Example for 1D Haptic Feedback , 2017, UIST.

[6]  Lawrence H. Kim,et al.  UbiSwarm: Ubiquitous Robotic Interfaces and Investigation of Abstract Motion as a Display , 2017, Proc. ACM Interact. Mob. Wearable Ubiquitous Technol..

[7]  Mark D. Gross,et al.  FluxMarker: Enhancing Tactile Graphics with Dynamic Tactile Markers , 2017, ASSETS.

[8]  Sean Follmer,et al.  Revisiting Turtles and Termites: an Open-ended Interactive Physical Game with Multiple Robots , 2017, IDC.

[9]  Markus Funk,et al.  Tactile Drones - Providing Immersive Tactile Feedback in Virtual Reality through Quadcopters , 2017, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[10]  Lawrence H. Kim,et al.  Human Perception of Swarm Robot Motion , 2017, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[11]  Wafa Johal,et al.  Haptic-Enabled Handheld Mobile Robots: Design and Analysis , 2017, CHI.

[12]  Wafa Johal,et al.  Cellulo: Versatile Handheld Robots for Education , 2017, 2017 12th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI.

[13]  Guy Hoffman,et al.  Computational Human-Robot Interaction , 2016, Found. Trends Robotics.

[14]  Pierre Dragicevic,et al.  Zooids: Building Blocks for Swarm User Interfaces , 2016, UIST.

[15]  Joseph A. Paradiso,et al.  Rovables: Miniature On-Body Robots as Mobile Wearables , 2016, UIST.

[16]  Sean Follmer,et al.  Wolverine: A wearable haptic interface for grasping in virtual reality , 2016, 2016 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS).

[17]  M. Dorigo,et al.  Investigating the effect of increasing robot group sizes on the human psychophysiological state in the context of human–swarm interaction , 2016, Swarm Intelligence.

[18]  Saiganesh Swaminathan,et al.  Linespace: A Sensemaking Platform for the Blind , 2016, CHI.

[19]  Gilles Bailly,et al.  LivingDesktop: Augmenting Desktop Workstation with Actuated Devices , 2016, CHI.

[20]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Haptic Edge Display for Mobile Tactile Interaction , 2016, CHI.

[21]  H. Ishiguro,et al.  Intimacy in Phone Conversations: Anxiety Reduction for Danish Seniors with Hugvie , 2016, Front. Psychol..

[22]  Brian Scassellati,et al.  Robot nonverbal behavior improves task performance in difficult collaborations , 2016, 2016 11th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[23]  J. J. Robinson.  The Maldives: What Went Wrong with the Democracy Experiment? , 2016 .

[24]  Robin I. M. Dunbar,et al.  Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans , 2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[25]  Magnus Egerstedt,et al.  Haptic interactions with multi-robot swarms using manipulability , 2015, HRI 2015.

[26]  Nick Bryan-Kinns,et al.  How does it feel like? An exploratory study of a prototype system to convey emotion through haptic wearable devices , 2015, 2015 7th International Conference on Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN).

[27]  Paul A. Beardsley,et al.  Gesture based human - Multi-robot swarm interaction and its application to an interactive display , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

[28]  Mark R. Cutkosky,et al.  μTugs: Enabling microrobots to deliver macro forces with controllable adhesives , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

[29]  T. Shibata,et al.  Use of a Therapeutic, Socially Assistive Pet Robot (PARO) in Improving Mood and Stimulating Social Interaction and Communication for People With Dementia: Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial , 2015, JMIR research protocols.

[30]  Sriram Subramanian,et al.  Emotions Mediated Through Mid-Air Haptics , 2015, CHI.

[31]  Siddhartha S. Srinivasa,et al.  Legible robot pointing , 2014, The 23rd IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication.

[32]  Sriram Subramanian,et al.  Is my phone alive?: a large-scale study of shape change in handheld devices using videos , 2014, CHI.

[33]  Takayuki Kanda,et al.  Designing Enjoyable Motion-Based Play Interactions with a Small Humanoid Robot , 2013, International Journal of Social Robotics.

[34]  Michael Rubenstein,et al.  Massive uniform manipulation: Controlling large populations of simple robots with a common input signal , 2013, 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[35]  H. Ishiguro,et al.  Huggable communication medium decreases cortisol levels , 2013, Scientific Reports.

[36]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  inFORM: dynamic physical affordances and constraints through shape and object actuation , 2013, UIST.

[37]  Stephen M. Fiore,et al.  Effects of Robot Gaze and Proxemic Behavior on Perceived Social Presence during a Hallway Navigation Scenario , 2013 .

[38]  Ben J. A. Kröse,et al.  The TaSSt: Tactile sleeve for social touch , 2013, 2013 World Haptics Conference (WHC).

[39]  Karon E. MacLean,et al.  A first look at individuals' affective ratings of vibrations , 2013, 2013 World Haptics Conference (WHC).

[40]  Bilge Mutlu,et al.  The influence of height in robot-mediated communication , 2013, 2013 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[41]  Siddhartha S. Srinivasa,et al.  Legibility and predictability of robot motion , 2013, 2013 8th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[42]  Karon E. MacLean,et al.  Affective touch gesture recognition for a furry zoomorphic machine , 2013, TEI '13.

[43]  Radhika Nagpal,et al.  Kilobot: A low cost scalable robot system for collective behaviors , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[44]  Masahiro Shiomi,et al.  ‘Midas touch’ in human-robot interaction: Evidence from event-related potentials during the ultimatum game , 2012, 2012 7th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[45]  Thomas Hulin,et al.  Evaluation of a vibrotactile feedback device for spatial guidance , 2011, 2011 IEEE World Haptics Conference.

[46]  Ali Israr,et al.  Tactile brush: drawing on skin with a tactile grid display , 2011, CHI.

[47]  Luca Maria Gambardella,et al.  Self-organized cooperation between robotic swarms , 2011, Swarm Intelligence.

[48]  Ali Israr,et al.  TeslaTouch: electrovibration for touch surfaces , 2010, UIST.

[49]  Mark R. Cutkosky,et al.  Rotational Skin Stretch Feedback: A Wearable Haptic Display for Motion , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Haptics.

[50]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  Understanding users' preferences for surface gestures , 2010, Graphics Interface.

[51]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  User-defined gestures for surface computing , 2009, CHI.

[52]  Michael J. Griffin,et al.  Absolute thresholds for the perception of fore-and-aft, lateral, and vertical vibration at the hand, the seat, and the foot , 2008 .

[53]  Vincent Hayward,et al.  Haptically Enabled Handheld Information Display With Distributed Tactile Transducer , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia.

[54]  François Michaud,et al.  Using proprioceptive sensors for categorizing human-robot interactions , 2007, 2007 2nd ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI).

[55]  Mark R. Cutkosky,et al.  Scaling Hard Vertical Surfaces with Compliant Microspine Arrays , 2006, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[56]  Andrea Lockerd Thomaz,et al.  Effects of nonverbal communication on efficiency and robustness in human-robot teamwork , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[57]  Karon E. MacLean,et al.  Designing with haptic feedback , 2000, Proceedings 2000 ICRA. Millennium Conference. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Symposia Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37065).

[58]  Zsolt Kira,et al.  Exerting human control over decentralized robot swarms , 2000, 2009 4th International Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents.

[59]  Takeo Kanade,et al.  WYSIWYF Display: A Visual/Haptic Interface to Virtual Environment , 1999, Presence.

[60]  G. Essick,et al.  Psychophysical assessment of the affective components of non-painful touch. , 1999, Neuroreport.

[61]  A. Mehrabian.  Pleasure-arousal-dominance: A general framework for describing and measuring individual differences in Temperament , 1996 .

[62]  M. Bradley,et al.  Measuring emotion: the Self-Assessment Manikin and the Semantic Differential. , 1994, Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry.

[63]  Michael R. M. Jenkin,et al.  A taxonomy for swarm robots , 1993, Proceedings of 1993 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS '93).

[64]  P. Ekman.  Are there basic emotions? , 1992, Psychological review.

[65]  Stanley E. Jones,et al.  A naturalistic study of the meanings of touch , 1985 .

[66]  Dennis R. Wixon,et al.  Building a user-derived interface , 1984, CACM.

[67]  M. Solomonow,et al.  Electrotactile two-point discrimination as a function of frequency, body site, laterality, and stimulation codes , 1977, Annals of Biomedical Engineering.

[68]  Norihiro Hagita,et al.  How Do Communication Cues Change Impressions of Human–Robot Touch Interaction? , 2018, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[69]  Hiroshi Ishiguro,et al.  Does A Robot’s Touch Encourage Human Effort? , 2017, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[70]  Matteo Bianchi,et al.  Electroencephalographic spectral correlates of caress-like affective haptic stimuli , 2015, 2015 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC).

[71]  A. Ehlers,et al.  Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry , 2015 .

[72]  Andrea Lockerd Thomaz,et al.  An Investigation of Responses to Robot-Initiated Touch in a Nursing Context , 2014, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[73]  Dana Kulic,et al.  Measurement Instruments for the Anthropomorphism, Animacy, Likeability, Perceived Intelligence, and Perceived Safety of Robots , 2009, Int. J. Soc. Robotics.

[74]  Johnny Chung Lee,et al.  Projector-Based Location Discovery and Tracking , 2007 .

[75]  Thomas H. Massie,et al.  The PHANToM Haptic Interface: A Device for Probing Virtual Objects , 1994 .

[76]  G. L. Bon,et al.  Scientific Literature: The Crowd. A Study of the Popular Mind , 1897 .