Rapid advances in the field of robotics have made it possible to use robots not just in industrial automation but also in entertainment, rehabilitation, and home service. Since robots will likely affect many aspects of human existence, fundamental questions of human-robot interaction must be formulated and, if at all possible, resolved. Some of these questions are addressed in this collection of papers by leading HRI researchers.

"Advances in Human-Robot Interaction" provides a unique collection of recent research in human-robot interaction. It covers the basic important research areas ranging from multi-modal interfaces, interpretation, interaction, learning, or motion coordination to topics such as physical interaction, systems, and architectures. The book addresses key issues of human-robot interaction concerned with perception, modelling, control, planning and cognition, covering a wide spectrum of applications. This includes interaction and communication with robots in manufacturing environments and the collaboration and co-existence with assistive robots in domestic environments. Among the presented examples are a robotic bartender, a new programming paradigm for a cleaning robot, or an approach to interactive teaching of a robot assistant in manufacturing environment. This carefully edited book reports on contributions from leading German academic institutions and industrial companies brought together within MORPHA, a 4 year project on interaction and communication between humans and anthropomorphic robot assistants.

Introduction of robotics into agriculture has the potential to lower production costs, reduce the drudgery of tedious manual labor, increase the level of accuracy of mechanized operations, and improve environmental control. Unlike industrial applications that often deal with relatively simple, repetitive, well-defined, and known a priori tasks, agriculture robots usually require advanced technologies to deal with the relatively more complex and highly unstructured and dynamic nature of both biological produce and the environment. This chapter reviews agricultural robotic systems with a focus on recent advances in human–robot collaboration.

This book presents state-of-the-art research, challenges and solutions in the area of human–robot collaboration (HRC) in manufacturing. It enables readers to better understand the dynamic behaviour of manufacturing processes, and gives more insight into on-demand adaptive control techniques for industrial robots. With increasing complexity and dynamism in today’s manufacturing practice, more precise, robust and practical approaches are needed to support real-time shop-floor operations. This book presents a collection of recent developments and innovations in this area, relying on a wide range of research efforts. The book is divided into five parts. The first part presents a broad-based review of the key areas of HRC, establishing a common ground of understanding in key aspects. Subsequent chapters focus on selected areas of HRC subject to intense recent interest. The second part discusses human safety within HRC. The third, fourth and fifth parts provide in-depth views of relevant methodologies and algorithms. Discussing dynamic planning and monitoring, adaptive control and multi-modal decision making, the latter parts facilitate a better understanding of HRC in real situations. The balance between scope and depth, and theory and applications, means this book appeals to a wide readership, including academic researchers, graduate students, practicing engineers, and those within a variety of roles in manufacturing sectors.

The book's content is designed to provide practical guidance and insights for conducting experiments in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and publishing the results in scientific journals. It includes a detailed explanation of how to conduct HRI experiments and what to do and what not to do to get an article accepted for publication. It is tailored to those seeking to deepen their understanding of HRI methodologies, statistical measurements, and research design. The case studies and examples featured in the book focus on interactions between social robots and specific demographics such as children and older adults, making it relevant for individuals working in healthcare, education, and related domains.Also covered are common statistical measurements used in HRI research and quantitative, qualitative, and meta-analyses. The concepts are illustrated with several international case studies of interactions between social robots and children and older adults and robot learning instead of programming. The final chapter explores current trends in HRI and provides insights into what to look for in the coming years. It includes an extensive reference section to help HRI researchers in all these areas.This book will appeal to an international audience of advanced students, researchers, industry, and others who are actively engaged or interested in the field of HRI.

The book Human-Robot Interaction - Perspectives and Applications highlights the latest developments and obstacles in the field of human-machine interaction, including collaborative and humanoid robots, symbiosis between humans and robots, human-human collaboration, and robotics. Human-robot interaction has immense potential in areas like healthcare, education, manufacturing, military, and space exploration. This volume consists of several chapters that explore various topics such as the use of robotic wheelchairs, deep neural networks for robot grasp recognition, materials and sensors required for human-robot interaction, the use of drone technology in agriculture, healthcare robots in smart hospitals, and more.

Trust in Human-Robot Interaction addresses the gamut of factors that influence trust of robotic systems. The book presents the theory, fundamentals, techniques and diverse applications of the behavioral, cognitive and neural mechanisms of trust in human-robot interaction, covering topics like individual differences, transparency, communication, physical design, privacy and ethics. - Presents a repository of the open questions and challenges in trust in HRI - Includes contributions from many disciplines participating in HRI research, including psychology, neuroscience, sociology, engineering and computer science - Examines human information processing as a foundation for understanding HRI - Details the methods and techniques used to test and quantify trust in HRI

Like many other fields, the area of manufacturing has advanced massively since the onset of the technological revolution brought about by advances in computing and smart technologies, and with the accelerating globalisation of manufacturing in the 21st century, the urgent need to keep pace has produced further rapid advancements in technology, research, and innovation. This book presents the proceedings of ICMR 2023, the 20th International Conference on Manufacturing Research, held from 6 – 8 September 2023 in Aberystwyth, Wales, UK. This annual conference is a friendly and inclusive platform for a broad community of researchers with the common goal of developing and managing the technologies and operations key to manufacturing. As well as bringing together researchers, academics, and industrialists to share their knowledge and experience, the conference also serves to promote manufacturing-engineering education, training and research. Reflecting the context of Industry 4.0 and beyond, the theme of the 2023 conference is sustainability in smart manufacturing environments. More than 68 papers were submitted for the conference, from which the 33 papers presented here were selected and accepted after a rigorous peer review process; an acceptance rate of 49%. The papers are grouped into 8 sections: operations and supply chain management; manufacturing technology; manufacturing and process modeling; robotics and simulation systems; supply chain systems; process characterization and simulation; operations and supply chain management; and design and prototyping. Providing a wide-ranging overview of advances in the field, the book will be of interest to all those working in manufacturing research.