Multi-touch interaction for robot control

Abstract

Recent developments in multi-touch technologies have exposed fertile ground for research in enriched human-robot interaction. Although multi-touch technologies have been used for virtual 3D applications, to the authors' knowledge, ours is the first study to explore the use of a multi-touch table with a physical robot agent. This baseline study explores the control of a single agent with a multi-touch table using an adapted, previously studied, joystick-based interface. We performed a detailed analysis of users' interaction styles with two complex functions of the multi-touch interface and isolated mismatches between user expectations and interaction functionality.