A study of effective social cues within ubiquitous robotics

Abstract

Ubiquitous computing is the execution of computational tasks through everyday objects. Ubiquitous robotics augments the capabilities of one or more robots by leveraging ubiquitous computational and/or sensorial resources. Augmentation complements and/or enhances the capabilities of one or more robots while such robots can simultaneously serve as intermediaries or social interfaces to ubiquitous services. This paper posits the importance of conducting user studies to validate related HRI results within ubiquitous robotics. Specifically, the paper presents a pilot study designed to test the effectiveness of acknowledging human presence via non-verbal social cues and its impact on the user's acceptance and engagement with a ubiquitous robotic system.