About the Facility

A state-of-the-art facility for studying and evaluating Human-Robot Interaction across the disciplines of robotics, psychology, and interactive media arts with applications throughout health and medicine.

The Facility's experimental space is framed with a metal structure covered with modular acoustic panels and acoustic ceiling tiles which support and partially conceal the sensors. Software combines and interprets sensor measurements to produce streams of time-stamped data that can then selectively be used in real time to control robotic devices, and/or logged to computer disk. This capability supports a wide variety of multidisciplinary experimentation in human–robot interaction. There are no comparable facilities for HRI research worldwide.

The Facility can support markerless sensing of human movement; studies of user interaction with technological devices, and interpretation of human intent and affect; improving the quality of everyday life activities of people with impairments using robotics technology; robot learning and cognitive reasoning in HRI; planning, action, and safety in cooperative human–robot activity; and the evaluation of robot design for HRI.

Thanks to the partnership with Spatial Inc. and Dickins Audio, the Facility is equipped with an advanced digital network consisting of 256 individual output sound channels and 120 microphone channels. This cutting-edge setup enables the creation of immersive soundscapes, enchanced by reverb emulation for realistic echo simulation.

Facility Staff

Facility Partners