Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems (FP7-215805)

The CHRIS project will address the fundamental issues which would enable safe Human Robot Interaction (HRI).

Specifically this project addresses the problem of a human and a robot performing co-operative tasks in a co-located space, such as in the kitchen where your service robot stirs the soup as you add the cream. These issues include communication of a shared goal (verbally and through gesture), perception and understanding of intention (from dextrous and gross movements), cognition necessary for interaction, and active and passive compliance. These are the prerequisites for many applications in service robotics and through research will provide the scientific foundations for engineering cognitive systems.

The project is based on the essential premise that it will be ultimately beneficial to our socioeconomic welfare to generate service robots capable of safe co-operative physical interaction with humans.

The key hypothesis is that safe interaction between human and robot can be engineered physically and cognitively for joint physical tasks requiring co-operative manipulation of real world objects.

A diverse set of disciplines have been brought together to realise an inter-disciplinary solution. The starting point for understanding cooperative cognition will be from the basic building blocks of initial interactions, those of young children. Engineering principles of safe movement and dexterity will be explored on the 3 available robot platforms, and developed with principles of language, communication and decisional action planning where the robot reasons explicitly with its human partner. Integration of cognition for safe co-operation in the same physical space will provide significant advancement in the area, and a step towards service robots in society.

The CHRIS project is funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and will run from 2008-2012.