Editorial:
Special Issue on Human-Robot Interaction in Close Distance
Masahiro Shiomi, Hidenobu Sumioka, and Hiroshi Ishiguro
Group Leader, Department of Agent Interaction Design Lab, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR)
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
Group Leader, Presence Media Research Group, Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR)
2-2-2 Hikaridai, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan
Distinguished Professor, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University
1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan
As social robot research is advancing, the interaction distance between people and robots is decreasing. Indeed, although we were once required to maintain a certain physical distance from traditional industrial robots for safety, we can now interact with social robots in such a close distance that we can touch them. The physical existence of social robots will be essential to realize natural and acceptable interactions with people in daily environments. Because social robots function in our daily environments, we must design scenarios where robots interact closely with humans by considering various viewpoints. Interactions that involve touching robots influence the changes in the behavior of a person strongly. Therefore, robotics researchers and developers need to design such scenarios carefully. Based on these considerations, this special issue focuses on close human-robot interactions.
This special issue on “Human-Robot Interaction in Close Distance” includes a review paper and 11 other interesting papers covering various topics such as social touch interactions, non-verbal behavior design for touch interactions, child-robot interactions including physical contact, conversations with physical interactions, motion copying systems, and mobile human-robot interactions. We thank all the authors and reviewers of the papers and hope this special issue will help readers better understand human-robot interaction in close distance.
This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationa License.