Methodological Issues in HRI: A Comparison of Live and Video-Based Methods in Robot to Human Approach Direction Trials

The main aim of this study was to confirm the findings from previous pilot studies that results obtained from the same human robot interaction (HRI) scenarios in trials using both video-based and live methodologies were comparable. We investigated how a robot should approach human subjects in various scenarios relevant to the robot fetching an object for the subject. These scenarios include a human subject sitting in an open space, sitting at a table, standing in an open space and standing against a wall. The subjects experienced the robot approaching from various directions for each of these contexts in HRI trials that were both live and video-based. There was a high degree of agreement between the results obtained from both the live and video based trials using the same scenarios. The main findings from both types of trial methodology were: Humans strongly did not like a direct frontal approach by a robot, especially while sitting (even at a table) or while standing with their back to a wall. An approach from the front left or front right was preferred. When standing in an open space a frontal approach was more acceptable and although a rear approach was not usually most preferred, it was generally acceptable to subjects if physically more convenient