Talk by Prof Guy Hoffman, Cornell University

Designing Robots with Movement in Mind

Abstract:

Robots designed for human-robot interaction (HRI) mostly follow one of two design paths: pragmatic and visual. A pragmatic design approach sets out from specifications required of the robot’s spatial activity towards physical goals, as defined by users of the system. A visual approach is to design robots with appearance in mind. This is common for robots intended specifically for expressive interaction, as well as for entertainment robots. In our work, we emphasize the fact that the expressive movement of the robot is at the core of its function, and argue for a movement-centric design approach. The robot’s movement is not added on after the robot is designed, or—more commonly—completely built. Instead, it is factored in from the onset and converses with both the visual and the pragmatic requirements of the robot. I will exemplify this approach through the design process of five socially expressive robots designed in our labs, including Shimon, Travis, Kip, Vyo, and most recently, Blossom.

Biography:

Dr. Guy Hoffman is Assistant Professor and the Mills Family Faculty Fellow in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor at IDC Herzliya and co-director of the IDC Media Innovation Lab. Hoffman holds a Ph.D from MIT in the field of human-robot interaction. He heads the Human-Robot Collaboration and Companionship (HRC²) group, studying the algorithms, interaction schema, and designs enabling close interactions between people and personal robots in the workplace and at home. Among others, Hoffman developed the world’s first human-robot joint theater performance, and the first real-time improvising human-robot Jazz duet. His research papers won several top academic awards, including Best Paper awards at HRI and robotics conferences in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2015. In both 2010 and 2012, he was selected as one of Israel’s most promising researchers under forty. His TEDx talk is one of the most viewed online talks on robotics, watched more than 2.8 million times. Hoffman received his M.Sc. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University as part of the Adi Lautman interdisciplinary excellence scholarship program.