Intelligent Agents for Virtual Simulation of Human-Robot Interaction

To study how robots can work better with humans as a team, we have designed an agent-based online testbed that supports virtual simulation of domain-independent human-robot interaction. The simulation is implemented as an online game where humans and virtual robots work together in simulated scenarios. This testbed allows researchers to carry out human-robot interaction studies and gain better understanding of, for example, how a robot’s communication can improve human-robot team performance by fostering better trust relationships among humans and their robot teammates. In this paper, we discuss the requirements, challenges and the design of such human-robot simulation. We illustrate its operation with an example human-robot joint reconnaissance task.

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