The Road to Reliable Robots: Interpretable, Accessible, and Reproducible Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Research

There are a multitude of robotic application domains that touch on the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). From modern manufacturing involving human-robot teams, to personal care robots assisting the elderly, the roles that robots are being tasked with and the nature of interactions with humans are constantly shifting. Even the nature of interaction has changed to incorporate wearable technologies such as exoskeletons to enhance human capabilities, and advanced prosthetics to restore those abilities that have been lost. With this ever-evolving spectrum of HRI, the capacity of measurement science to evaluate, assess, and assure performance and safety struggles to keep up. Building on our previous five-workshop series on Test Methods and Metrics for Effective HRI, NIST presents a new series on evaluative methodologies for accelerating the pipeline from cutting-edge HRI research to state-of-practice. This workshop will address issues regarding 1) data collection and reporting for replicability and system validation, 2) test design and execution for performance verification, and 3) cross-modality artifact design for real-world application-adjacent technology transfer. The goal of this workshop is to accelerate and accommodate accessibility to HRI research results, and address the specific key performance indicators that would establish end-user trust and acceptance of emerging HRI technologies.