CrowdHRI: Gamifying HRI Data Collection as a Multiplayer Mixed Reality Game

Crowdsourcing data for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) research remains a challenge, requiring scalable, flexible, and immersive methods to collect meaningful interaction data. This paper introduces CrowdHRI, a novel approach to gamify HRI data collection through a multiplayer mixed reality (MR) game. The proposed system integrates a web server and Unity-based client architecture, enabling users to schedule or join sessions dynamically. Through immersive MR, CrowdHRI offers realistic environments and supports customizable experimental setups, gathering high-fidelity data on human-robot interactions. The system includes automated metrics to capture interaction quality, alongside a robust data science framework for analysis. By addressing the limitations of existing platforms—such as restricted scalability and interaction fidelity CrowdHRI enables a wide range of experimental conditions and advances the field of HRI research. 1