Urja Acharya

Papers

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About

Urja Acharya is a researcher at the forefront of human-robot interaction, with a focus on making autonomous systems more intuitive and responsive to human needs. Her work centers on two critical areas: understanding human comfort with different robot morphologies and developing shared control systems that adapt to individual users. In her most-cited paper (35 citations), Acharya conducted a pioneering investigation comparing human comfort with small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs) versus ground robots, revealing key insights into how robot form factors influence human acceptance—a foundational study for the safe deployment of aerial robots in public spaces. She further advanced the field by exploring how robotic systems can infer user qualities to improve collaborative performance, proposing adaptive controllers that learn from user behavior rather than forcing users to adapt to the machine. Her 2018 paper on this topic (12 citations) and subsequent 2019 work on cyber-physical human systems demonstrate her commitment to creating truly collaborative human-robot teams. Acharya’s research is essential reading for anyone interested in designing robots that are not only functional but also comfortable and effective partners for humans.