Master Thesis MSTR-2017-112

BibliographyKratzer, Philipp: Robot assistance for collaborative task execution.
University of Stuttgart, Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Information Technology, Master Thesis No. 112 (2017).
59 pages, english.
Abstract

Nowadays highly accurate and mobile robots are able to perceive and manipulate their environment. Such robots can be used to assist humans in everyday tasks to reduce their workload. As a consequence, communication and interaction between humans and robots is becoming more important. In this thesis we present a system for human-robot collaboration for on-table tasks. The system is implemented for the PR2 research and development platform. Using the robot's depth sensor the objects on a table are detected and tracked during task execution. We analyzed on-table tasks in general and used the system to implement three different example tasks: a task that requires the human and the robot to order blocks by color, a task where a bridge is built and a task with a joint action. Additionally, we implemented five action-selection strategies for the robot: proactive, autonomous, reactive, human-requested and human-commands. We conducted a user study to compare the interaction modes during the bridge task and to evaluate the usage of the system in a real scenario. The answers of the participants indicate that for the bridge-building task, people prefer to interact with a robot using the proactive, autonomous or human-commands action-selection strategy rather than with the reactive or the human-requested strategy. The user study demonstrates that the system is useful for tabletop human-robot interaction with a real robot. Furthermore, the system can serve as a basis for further investigations in the area of human-robot interaction.

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Department(s)University of Stuttgart, Institute of Parallel and Distributed Systems, Machine Learning und Robotics
Superviser(s)Toussaint, Prof. Marc; Schulz, Ph.D. Ruth
Entry dateApril 6, 2022
   Publ. Computer Science