January 26, 2018

Samuel Olatunji

Topic: Interaction design for varying levels of automation (ESR 10)

Email: olatunji@post.bgu.ac.il

Supervisors: Prof. Yael Edan, Prof. Tal Oron-Gilad

I’m from Nigeria. My Bachelor’s Degree was in Electrical Engineering and Master’s in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, both from University of Ilorin, Nigeria.

Summary of research

The aim of the research is to contribute to the design of the interaction between older adults and their assistive robots by investigating adaptable levels of automation (LOA), the feedback that the robots provide to their users and the interaction between these two.

A model was proposed to integrate LOA with levels of transparency (LOT) to keep older adult users active and engaged with the robot while being informed on the behaviour of the robot at any given time. Experimental testbeds utilized to empirically evaluate the research design through user studies include: a human following task with a mobile robot, table setting task with a robotic arm and a hazard perception task with a telepresence robot.

Results from experiments in the human following and table setting tasks revealed that older adults tend to be more interactive when the LOA is low compared to situations with high LOA. It is recommended that lower LOA should be combined with higher LOT, to keep older adults adequately informed. It is also recommended to maintain the LOT at a low level if a high LOA is utilized, to reduce information overload on the older adults. Results of the evaluation of the influence of the automation and transparency levels on the quality of user-robot interaction with the telepresence robot will also be presented as the outcome emerges.

The research reveals the potential for improved interaction design when implementing LOA-LOT design principles in socially assistive robotic applications for older adults.

Demo of Working application: https://youtu.be/3ruDAcTzPIg

Data: https://github.com/samuelolatunji/data_esr10_socrates

Open source code: https://github.com/wycabgu/wyca_GUI

List of Publications

Journal Publications

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers

Workshops in Robotics Conferences (with paper publication)

  • Olatunji, S., Sarne-Fleischmann, S. S. Honig, T. Oron-Gilad, Y. Edan. 2019.
    Feedback design to improve interaction of person-following robots for older adults.
    Mobile Robot Assistants for the Elderly, Workshop at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Montreal, Canada, May 20-24. 
  • Markfeld, N., Olatunji, D. Gutman, S. Givati, V. Sarne-Fleischmann, Y. Edan. 2019.
    Feedback modalities for a table setting robot assistant for elder care.
    Quality of Interaction in Socially Assistive Robots, Quality of Interaction in Socially Assistive Robots (QISAR) Workshop International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR’19) – Madrid, Spain, November 26-29.
  • Kumar, S., E. Itzhak, Olatunji, V. Sarne-Fleischmann, N. Tractinsky, G. Nimrod, Y. Edan. 2019. Exploratory evaluation of politeness in human-robot interaction. Quality of Interaction in Socially Assistive Robots, Quality of Interaction in Socially Assistive Robots (QISAR) Workshop International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR’19) – Madrid, Spain, November 26-29.
  • Olatunji S., V. Sarne-Fleischmann, S.S. Honig, H. Zaichyk, T. Markovich, T. Oron-Gilad, Edan. 2018. User preferences for socially acceptable person-following robots: environmental influence case studies. Assistance and Service Robotics in a Human Environment Workshop, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
  • Honig, S.S., T. Oron-Gilad, V. Sarne-Fleischmann, Olatunji, Y. Edan. 2018. A user-needs based approach for designing human-robot interactions. Workshop on Robotic Co-workers 4.0: Human Safety and Comfort in Human-Robot Interactive Social Environments, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

Samuel Olatunji