Browsing by Author "Rea, Daniel J."
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- ItemOpen AccessInspector Baxter: The Social Aspects of Integrating a Robot as a Quality Inspector in an Assembly Line(2015-06-24) Banh, Amy; Rea, Daniel J.; Young, James E.; Sharlin, EhudWe are interested in the social implications of working alongside robots. In this paper we look at a humanoid robot quality inspector, acting alongside workers in an assembly line. This setting is viable in small scale assembly lines where human assembly workers provide flexible, rapid assembly. A robotic quality inspector could enhance the quality assurance process, but places the robot in a position of relative seniority to the assembly workers. We present the results of an initial in-lab pilot study designed with our industry collaborators. In our pilot, a humanoid robot visually inspected participants’ assembled products in a shared workspace and provided critiques that follow simple models of robotic social feedback. Our findings suggest that people’s opinions of the robot (trust, impression of intelligence, etc.) changed based on the robot’s social behaviors while it is judging the participant’s work. Additionally, people rated the robot more negatively if they disagreed with the robot’s opinions of their work, regardless of the robot social behavior and the value of its critique.
- ItemOpen AccessShared Presence and Collaboration Using a Co-Located Humanoid Robot(2015-06-24) Wentzel, Johann; Rea, Daniel J.; Young, James E.; Sharlin, EhudThis work proposes the concept of shared presence, where we enable a user to “become” a co-located humanoid robot while still being able to use their real body to complete tasks. The user controls the robot and sees with its vision and sen-sors, while still maintaining awareness and use of their real body for tasks other than controlling the robot. This shared presence can be used to accomplish tasks that are difficult for one person alone, for example, a robot manipulating a circuit board for easier soldering by the user, lifting and manipulat-ing heavy or unwieldy objects together, or generally having the robot conduct and complete secondary tasks while the user focuses on the primary tasks. If people are able to over-come the cognitive difficulty of maintaining presence for both themselves and a nearby remote entity, tasks that typi-cally require the use of two people could simply require one person assisted by a humanoid robot that they control. In this work, we explore some of the challenges of creating such a system, propose research questions for shared presence, and present our initial implementation that can enable shared presence. We believe shared presence opens up a new re-search direction that can be applied to many fields, including manufacturing, home-assistant robotics, and education