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About

Henriette Cornet is a human-machine interaction researcher whose work sits at the intersection of autonomous mobility, service robotics, and emotional design. Her research addresses one of the defining challenges of emerging transportation technologies: as autonomous vehicles and AI-driven systems replace human contact points in public transport, how can design bridge the resulting emotional and social gap between passengers and machines? Cornet's most influential contribution, "Personas and Emotional Design for Public Service Robots" (2018, 28 citations), pioneered the application of emotional design and persona frameworks to autonomous vehicle contexts, positioning service robots as empathetic mediators in driverless environments. Building on this foundation, her 2022 virtual reality study (19 citations) examined how varying robot designs shape human compliance and emotional response in public transport settings — a methodologically innovative approach that leverages immersive simulation to test real-world interaction scenarios before deployment. Her collaborative work in Singapore further explored contrasting robot and virtual companion concepts for shared autonomous mobility, demonstrating a commitment to cross-cultural and context-sensitive design. With research spanning user experience, crowd management, and human-robot interaction, Cornet's work meaningfully advances our understanding of how thoughtful design can make autonomous public transport systems feel safer, more trustworthy, and genuinely human-centered.