The development of interactive robots is a complicated process, involving a plethora of psychological, technical, and contextual influences. To design a robot capable of operating ldquointelligentlyrdquo in everyday situations, one needs a profound understanding of human-robot interaction (HRI). We propose an approach based on integral analysis of multimodal data to pursue this understanding and support interdisciplinary research and development in the field of robotics. To adopt this approach, a software tool named interaction debugger was developed that features user-friendly navigation, browsing, searching, viewing, and annotation of data; it enables fine-grained inspection of the HRI. In four case studies, we demonstrated how our analysis approach aids the development process of interactive robots.

Along with the development of interactive robots, controlled experiments and field trials are regularly conducted to stage human-robot interaction. Experience in this field has shown that analyzing human-robot interaction for evaluation purposes fosters the development of improved systems and the generation of new knowledge. In this paper, we present the interaction debugging approach, which is based on the collection and analysis of data from robots and their environment. Considering the multimodality of robotic technology, often only audio and video are insufficient for detailed analysis of human-robot interaction. Therefore, in our analysis we integrate multimodal information using audio, video, sensory data, and intermediate variables. An important aspect of the interaction debugging approach is using a tool called Interaction Debugger to analyze data. By supporting user-friendly data presentation, annotation and navigation, Interaction Debugger enables fine-grained inspection of human-robot interaction. The main goal of this paper is to address how an integral approach to the analysis of human-robot interaction can be adopted. This is demonstrated by three case studies.