Contact: romanws@commrob.eu

Improving Human-Robot Communication with Mixed-Initiative and Context-Awareness

Important Dates

Submission deadline: July 15, 2009
Notification of acceptance: July 31, 2009 August 10, 2009
Workshop date and location: September 28, 2009 - Toyama International Conference Center, Japan

Goals

This one-day workshop addresses mixed-initiative communication and context-awareness in human-robot interaction. Although these topics are investigated in isolation, a combined view of both aspects is often lacking when designing a human-robot interface. So, a potential quality improvement of the user interface is neglected.

For example, a robot that will be capable of indicating a product to the user in a supermarket [1] would require awareness of the localization. Another example would be a robot trolley used as a walking aid by an impaired person capable of recognizing crowded areas and decide to avoid them. We can also think of disabling the speech input and output modality if there is too much noise. Such kind of interaction which involves mixed-initiative supports a more "natural" human-robot interaction. Context-awareness is also needed in order to decide which initiative is meaningful for the user.

In this workshop we take both concepts into consideration in an integrated manner. Our discussion process focuses on how this combination may lead to better user interface design. As many issues are still not resolved, we initiate an in-depth discussion in order to gain more insight.

List of Topics

The topics addressed in this workshop include the following:

1. Using different spatial data (vision, 3D-sound, GPS) for context understanding, supporting mixed-initiative
2. Relevant scenarios for mixed-initiative and their requirements on context-awareness
3. Design and development of mixed-initiative and spatial context-aware (multimodal) user interfaces
4. Relevant applications and experiences of user interfaces based on context-awareness and mixed-initiative

Submission

Position papers (maximum of 4 pages) or work-in-progress papers covering new research ideas and future trends must be submitted in electronic form (in PDF). Selection will be carried out by an international team of experts. A criteria for selection will be novelty of idea or solution presented and relevance to the topics of the workshop. The paper must address at least one of the workshop topics. The presented ideas need not be mature but should be able to generate constructive discussion for future development. Workshop organizers will contact accepted participants before the workshop, and may ask some participants to present at the session.

Paper format: max. 4 pages in LNCS style (http://www.springer.com/comp/lncs/Authors.html)
Submission procedure: Use the paper submission interface to upload your complete paper. You will be given an id/password which may later be used to access the system again, so be careful to remember it. Publication: The proceedings of the workshop will be print outs handed over to the workshop participants and CDs. Additionally, the proceedings are published on http://CEUR-WS.org and on the workshop webpage.

References

[1] Kaindl, H., Falb, J., Bogdan, C.: Multimodal communication involving movements of a robot," CHI '08 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, 2008, pp. 3213 - 3218