Achieving human-robot cooperation in a telerobotics system is the focus of this paper. The implementation of human-robot systems can be extremely challenging when the robot is not directly controlled by the human. The interaction mode, depending on the task context, can be continuous manual, semi-autonomous or autonomous. To address the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) issues in such a system, a concept of seamless HRI is introduced. Seamless HRI implies flexibility in human control in interacting with a robot in different situations, and the adaptability of the robot autonomy in response to the human control. The main idea is to design a telerobotics system that allows a shift from manual to autonomous operation, dynamically, via different human-robot roles and relationships. These roles are Master-Slave, Supervisor-Subordinate, Partner-Partner, Teacher-Learner and Full Autonomous mode by the robot. This paper presents the theoretical foundations and the requirements for seamless HRI. An implementation of the concept and an experimental evaluation is presented.

This paper describes the design and implementation of a testbed for facilitating the study of human-robot interactions (HRI). HRI has long been a part of robotics research, where humans were typically required to guide the robot task in progress and to ensure safe operation. The current state of human interaction with robots, versus simple “machines” (e.g. in manufacturing automation) is quite different. This called for the need to look into different interaction roles between humans and robots. Robots differ from simple machines in that they are mobile, some may be autonomous and hence not as predictable in their actions. To facilitate the research in this domain, the aim is to develop an easy to use and safe front-end human-robot system for human users to interact with physical mobile robots. This testbed provides different types of system configurations (i.e. one human to one robot, one human to multiple robots, etc.) and interfaces for conducting experiments under different HRI scenarios.

With the functions of physical robots now extended beyond academia into factories, homes and fields, the interactions between humans and robots have become increasingly extensive and ubiquitous. The current state of human interaction with robots in comparison to simple "machines" that operate in structured environment, such as industrial robotics, is quite different. Robots differ from these machines in that they are capable of functioning in evolving situations, reasoning and acting in a relatively complex domain. The deployment of these robots leads to an important research issue in the design and development of a Human-Robot System (HRS), i.e. to look into how human and robot can interact seamlessly to accomplish task objectives. v

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