Interactions of an Anthropomorphic Simulated Human With a Simulated Service Robot

Abstract

It is expected that robots of the future will coexist and interact with humans in places such as homes and offices. In order to make the interaction of service robots with humans safe and effective, new technol ogies must be developed, ranging from physical ma terial design for robot bodies, to intelligent control lers. Simulation provides a convenient and efficient research environment for design, testing and imple mentation of service robots. This paper presents a simulated world that includes a realistic simulated human and a simulated robot which delivers and hands over an object to the human. The human is made realistic by being modeled using physiologi cal data and anthropomorphic equations of motion. The robot's design is also based upon realistic speci fications. The robot's intelligence is achieved through a number of independent software agents that con tend for the robot's behavior production, named Con tention Architecture. The proposed actions of the au tonomous agents are evaluated based on a number of criteria so as to select one action to be taken by the robot. The experimental results of the interaction between human and robot through the task of hand- over is presented. It is shown that the robot is not only capable of performing the task effectively, but is also able to compensate for the unexpected move ments of the human, while allowing no harm to come to the person through physical contact.