Robohub.org
 

Henny Admoni: Understanding Human Behavior for Robotic Assistance and Collaboration | CMU RI Seminar


by
01 May 2019



share this:

Link to video on YouTube

“Human-robot collaboration has the potential to transform the way people work and live. Researchers are currently developing robots that assist people in public spaces, on the job, and in their homes. To be effective assistants, these robots must be able to recognize aspects of their human partners such as what their goals are, what their next action will be, and when they need help—in short, their task-relevant mental states. A large part of communication about mental states occurs nonverbally, through eye gaze, gestures, and other behaviors that provide implicit information. Therefore, to be effective collaborators, robots must understand nonverbal human communication as well as generate sufficiently expressive nonverbal behaviors that are understandable by their human partners. Developing effective human-robot interactions requires a multidisciplinary approach that involves fundamental robotics algorithms, insights from human psychology, and techniques from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision. In this talk, I will describe my work on robots that collaborate with and assist humans on complex tasks, such as eating a meal. I will show how robots can guide human action using nonverbal behaviors, and how natural, intuitive human behaviors can reveal human mental states that robots must respond to. Throughout the talk, I will describe how techniques and knowledge from cognitive science help us develop robot algorithms that lead to more effective interactions between people and their robot partners.”




John Payne

            AUAI is supported by:



Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

Robotics roadmaps from around the world

We embark on a tour into some of the recent and prominent robotics roadmaps from around the world.

A ‘5-in-1’ seed-sized surgical robot

Mini robot can move, cut tissue, release drugs, grip and store samples, and generate heat wirelessly

AI agents create virtual playgrounds to help robots get crucial training data

  07 Aug 2026
“SceneSmith” system uses collaborative AI agents to create realistic 3D environments of places like kitchens, hotels, and living rooms, where robots can simulate everyday chores.

Robots in society, business and culture: July 2026

A round up of robotics stories in a new monthly series from IEEE RAS.

Simulated zebrafish and a vision-equipped robotic fish reveal how the body shapes brain circuits

Researchers look to the fish brain to create a robotic zebrafish that can autonomously swim upstream.

Researchers develop modular nanorobot

  31 Jul 2026
A team at the University of Basel has developed a versatile nanorobot with propulsion and payload modules.

Surviving the paper deluge: a one-year study in learning from demonstration

With the explosion of robotics research, staying current in fields like Learning from Demonstration is a monumental challenge.

Soft robotic heart offers new way to study disease and test life-saving devices

Researchers have developed a soft robotic model of the human heart that can mimic disease and provide a realistic environment for testing the next generation of cardiac devices.



AUAI is supported by:







Subscribe to Robohub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence