Human-robot interaction (HRI) programmers often struggle with operating older robot hardware due to the short support period provided by manufacturers and difficulties integrating modern software solutions. This paper introduces the ZTL Task Library (ZTL), a lightweight communication framework and protocol designed to decouple robot hardware from the operating platform via socket communication, thereby increasing robot lifetime. We present a task-based communication protocol facilitating the co-design of robot behaviours with non-programming experts. Our approach has been shown across different platforms to effectively mitigate incompatibilities between middlewares, simplifying control and usability, allowing for simultaneous addressing of multiple devices.

We present a web application for controlling NAO V5 and NAO V6 robots using Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). The application was designed for a study in a special school. The school staff have found the application easy-to-use and versatile, and it may be useful to other researchers or people interested in controlling NAO. The HTTPS constraint and the locked-down nature of NAO introduced additional development challenges, and the solutions to these challenges are worth sharing with the HRI community. We present characteristics of the web application, implementation details, how it has been set up, and how to use it. Although the application is usable in its current form, there are still things that can be improved to make the application more useful in other contexts. We therefore document how the remote control can be extended and potential starting points for improvement.

We present a NAO robot that plays rock, paper, scissors with participants. The robot was an attempt to show how different aspects of computer science can be combined to make a fun and interesting interaction. We document the idea, how the different components work together, some events where we used the robot, and directions for future work.

We present a new typology for classifying signals from robots when they communicate with humans. For inspiration, we use ethology, the study of animal behaviour and previous efforts from literature as guides in defining the typology. The typology is based on communicative signals that consist of five properties: the origin where the signal comes from, the deliberateness of the signal, the signal's reference, the genuineness of the signal, and its clarity (i.e., how implicit or explicit it is). Using the accompanying worksheet, the typology is straightforward to use to examine communicative signals from previous human-robot interactions and provides guidance for designers to use the typology when designing new robot behaviours.

We used the story dialog method (SDM) to gather the viewpoints of health professionals about the use of social robots in the home and healthcare services with vulnerable users. SDM consists of participants bringing stories that they discuss together. The aim of the study was to address universal design and accessibility issues with robots in specific use situations. We used three social robots in four stories: TIAGo, Romibo and robot pets. We used the SDM method in two workshops with eight participants. The participants uncovered issues regarding ethics, responsibility, use of data, infrastructure, design, and user concerns based on provided stories and their own experiences. These issues provide important aspects that researchers and roboticists should consider when using robots with vulnerable users and ensuring that a robot is usable by as many people as possible.

Humans need to understand and trust the robots they are working with. We hypothesize that how a robot moves can impact people's perception and their trust. We present a methodology for a study to explore people's perception of a robot using the animation principle of slow in, slow out-to change the robot's velocity profile versus a robot moving using a linear velocity profile. Study participants will interact with the robot within a home context to complete a task while the robot moves around the house. The participants' perceptions of the robot will be recorded using the Godspeed Questionnaire. A pilot study shows that pilot participants notice the difference between the linear and the slow in, slow out velocity profiles, so the full experiment planned with participants will allow us to compare their perceptions based on the two observable behaviors.

We investigated how a robot moving with different velocity profiles affects a person's perception of it when working together on a task. The two profiles are the common linear profile and a profile based on the animation principles of slow in, slow out. The investigation was accomplished by running an experiment in a home context where people and the robot cooperated on a clean-up task. We used the Godspeed series of questionnaires to gather people's perception of the robot. Average scores for each series appear not to be different enough to reject the null hypotheses, but looking at the component items provides paths to future areas of research. We also discuss the scenario for the experiment and how it may be used for future research into using animation techniques for moving robots and improving the legibility of a robot's locomotion.

There are many different ways a robot can move in Human-Robot Interaction. One way is to use techniques from film animation to instruct the robot to move. This article is a systematic literature review of human-robot trials, pilots, and evaluations that have applied techniques from animation to move a robot. Through 27 articles, we find that animation techniques improves an individual’s interaction with robots, improving the individual’s perception of qualities of a robot, understanding what a robot intends to do, and showing the robot’s state or possible emotion. Animation techniques also help people relate to robots that do not resemble a human or robot. The studies in the articles show further areas for research, such as applying animation principles in other types of robots and situations, combining animation techniques with other modalities, and testing robots moving with animation techniques over the long term.