TY - GEN
T1 - Utilizing Bluetooth Low Energy to recognize proximity, touch and humans
AU - Scheunemann, Marcus M.
AU - Dautenhahn, Kerstin
AU - Salem, Maha
AU - Robins, Ben
PY - 2016/11/17
Y1 - 2016/11/17
N2 - Interacting with humans is one of the main challenges for mobile robots in a human inhabited environment. To enable adaptive behavior, a robot needs to recognize touch gestures and/or the proximity to interacting individuals. Moreover, a robot interacting with two or more humans usually needs to distinguish between them. However, this remains both a configuration and cost intensive task. In this paper we utilize inexpensive Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices and propose an easy and configurable technique to enhance the robot's capabilities to interact with surrounding people. In a noisy laboratory setting, a mobile spherical robot is utilized in three proof-of-concept experiments of the proposed system architecture. Firstly, we enhance the robot with proximity information about the individuals in the surrounding environment. Secondly, we exploit BLE to utilize it as a touch sensor. And lastly, we use BLE to distinguish between interacting individuals. Results show that observing the raw received signal strength (RSS) between BLE devices already enhances the robot's interaction capabilities and that the provided infrastructure can be facilitated to enable adaptive behavior in the future. We show one and the same sensor system can be used to detect different types of information relevant in human-robot interaction (HRI) experiments.
AB - Interacting with humans is one of the main challenges for mobile robots in a human inhabited environment. To enable adaptive behavior, a robot needs to recognize touch gestures and/or the proximity to interacting individuals. Moreover, a robot interacting with two or more humans usually needs to distinguish between them. However, this remains both a configuration and cost intensive task. In this paper we utilize inexpensive Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices and propose an easy and configurable technique to enhance the robot's capabilities to interact with surrounding people. In a noisy laboratory setting, a mobile spherical robot is utilized in three proof-of-concept experiments of the proposed system architecture. Firstly, we enhance the robot with proximity information about the individuals in the surrounding environment. Secondly, we exploit BLE to utilize it as a touch sensor. And lastly, we use BLE to distinguish between interacting individuals. Results show that observing the raw received signal strength (RSS) between BLE devices already enhances the robot's interaction capabilities and that the provided infrastructure can be facilitated to enable adaptive behavior in the future. We show one and the same sensor system can be used to detect different types of information relevant in human-robot interaction (HRI) experiments.
KW - Bluetooth
KW - Human-Robot Interaction
KW - Mobile Robotics
KW - Tactile Sensors
KW - BLE Devices
KW - HRI experiments
KW - received signal strength (RSS)
KW - Adaptive Behavior
KW - system on-chip
KW - bluetooth low energy
KW - Proxemics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85002560694&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745156
DO - 10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745156
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85002560694
T3 - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
SP - 362
EP - 367
BT - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
T2 - 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, RO-MAN 2016
Y2 - 26 August 2016 through 31 August 2016
ER -