A Cloud-based Robot System for Long-term Interaction: Principles, Implementation, Lessons Learned

ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction, vol. 11, pp. 1–27

Abstract

Making the transition to long-term interaction with social-robot systems has been identified as one of the main challenges in human-robot interaction. This article identifies four design principles to address this challenge and applies them in a real-world implementation: cloud-based robot control, a modular design, one common knowledge base for all applications, and hybrid artificial intelligence for decision making and reasoning. The control architecture for this robot includes a common Knowledge-base (ontologies), Data-base, “Hybrid Artificial Brain” (dialogue manager, action selection and explainable AI), Activities Centre (Timeline, Quiz, Break and Sort, Memory, Tip of the Day, \( \ldots \) ), Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA, i.e., robot and avatar), and Dashboards (for authoring and monitoring the interaction). Further, the ECA is integrated with an expandable set of (mobile) health applications. The resulting system is a Personal Assistant for a healthy Lifestyle (PAL), which supports diabetic children with self-management and educates them on health-related issues (48 children, aged 6–14, recruited via hospitals in the Netherlands and in Italy). It is capable of autonomous interaction “in the wild” for prolonged periods of time without the need for a “Wizard-of-Oz” (up until 6 months online). PAL is an exemplary system that provides personalised, stable and diverse, long-term human-robot interaction.

Authors 11

1. Frank Kaptein

   Delft University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

2. Bernd Kiefer
   Affiliation as printed

   paragon semvox GmbH, Limbach, Germany

3. Antoine Cully

   Imperial College London

   Affiliation as printed

   Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

4. Oya Çeliktutan

   King's College London

   Affiliation as printed

   King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

   King's College London, London, United Kingdom

5. Bert P.B. Bierman
   Affiliation as printed

   Produxi, Zeist, Netherlands

6. Rifca Peters

   Delft University of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

7. Joost Broekens Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

8. Willeke van Vught

   Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

   Affiliation as printed

   TNO, Soesterberg, Netherlands

9. Michael A. van Bekkum

   Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

   Affiliation as printed

   TNO, Soesterberg, Netherlands

10. Yiannis Demiris

    Imperial College London

    Affiliation as printed

    Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

11. Mark A. Neerincx

    Delft University of Technology

    Affiliation as printed

    Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands