Formalizing and Guaranteeing* Human-Robot Interaction

TL;DR

This paper reviews formal methods and guarantees in human-robot interaction, emphasizing the need for trustworthy systems as robots increasingly operate in public spaces alongside humans.

Contribution

It provides an overview of verification, validation, and synthesis techniques for trustworthy HRI systems and outlines future research challenges.

Findings

Identifies key HRI domains needing formal guarantees

Highlights existing verification and validation techniques

Proposes a roadmap for future research in formalized HRI

Abstract

Robot capabilities are maturing across domains, from self-driving cars, to bipeds and drones. As a result, robots will soon no longer be confined to safety-controlled industrial settings; instead, they will directly interact with the general public. The growing field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) studies various aspects of this scenario - from social norms to joint action to human-robot teams and more. Researchers in HRI have made great strides in developing models, methods, and algorithms for robots acting with and around humans, but these "computational HRI" models and algorithms generally do not come with formal guarantees and constraints on their operation. To enable human-interactive robots to move from the lab to real-world deployments, we must address this gap. This article provides an overview of verification, validation and synthesis techniques used to create demonstrably trustworthy systems, describes several HRI domains that could benefit from such techniques, and provides a roadmap for the challenges and the research needed to create formalized and guaranteed human-robot interaction.