The PhD position concerns a European project (FROG) to develop a guide robot with a winning personality and behaviors that will engage tourists in a fun exploration of outdoor attractions. The work encompasses innovation in the areas of vision-based detection, robotics design and navigation, human-robot interaction, affective computing, intelligent agent architecture and dependable autonomous outdoor robot operation.
The FROG robots’ fun personality and social visitor-guide behaviors aim to enhance the user experience. FROG’s behaviors will be designed based on the findings of systematic social behavioral studies of human interaction with robots. FROG adapts its behavior to the users through vision-based detection of human engagement and interest.
The PhD student will work on developing an effective and engaging robot personality as well as evaluate robot behaviors that will be experienced as socially normative (‘normal ’) by its users. The guide robot will need to adopt guide behaviors in order to engage and inform the visitors.
The robot will need to be trusted and accepted as a guide in an outdoor tourist setting and therefore the social interaction with visitors is an essential component in this research project. The work will contribute to scientific work in human-robot interaction. It will involve running socio-psychological experimentations in controlled and real-world conditions as well as user studies over prolonged time periods in outdoor settings.
De organisatie / The organisation
The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which drives change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university in the Netherlands; divided over six faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. The University of Twente has a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out pioneering research.
In the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EWI) is the place where these three disciplines shape Information and Communication Technology at the University of Twente. ICT is more than communication. In almost every product we use mathematics, electronics and computer technology are present, and ICT now contributes to all of societies' activities. It is no longer about gadgets that we do or do not want to use. The real integration of ICT is just beginning. What we need is more intelligence in our systems and improvement of their natural interaction with humans.
PhD position in Human Robot Social Interaction with small groups in outdoor spaces
