Migrating robots at ACE'11

One of the human-robot interaction concepts explored within the LIREC project is the concept of migrating agents; agents that move from embodiment to embodiment, allowing to pick whichever physical form fits the robot's task and user's context best. If the migrating agent needs to be perceived as one single character, balancing consistency of its behavior with the advantages of switching embodiments is crucial.

In collaboration with INESC-ID in Portugal, Elena Márquez Segura explored user reactions to migration, focusing on this balance. Elena spent about three weeks in Portugal, and together with INESC-ID's Paulo Gomes, studied children's reactions to the robot dinosaur Pleo, moving from its regular physical form, to a virtual character in a mobile app, and vice versa. Implementation and perceptions of the 'migration moment' itself play a large role in how children experience the move, and their interaction with the agent.

First publication, presented by Elena at ACE'11:
Paulo F. Gomes, Elena Márquez Segura, Henriette Cramer, Tiago Paiva, Ana Paiva, Lars Erik Holmquist (2011) ViPleo and PhyPleo: Artificial pet with two embodiments, Proc. ACE’11, Lisbon, Portugal. pdf