Shaping the Future of Human-Robot Interaction at Davos

In the Human and Robot Partners (HARP) Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, a robot mounted to a table must choose between three candy dishes. The robot - a sleek, multi-jointed black arm - has a camera mounted to its two-fingered gripper. The machine analyzes the eye gaze of a graduate student seated across the table to determine which of the three types of candy she desires. It then reaches into the correct dish, picks up a piece and delivers it. That successful human-robotic interaction is the result of years of dedicated research and application by Henny Admoni , an assistant professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon and director of the HARP Lab. Admoni will discuss how cognitive psychology, machine learning and robotics are creating the next generation of collaborative machines during a presentation called "The Future of Human-Robot Interaction" at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting on January 23 in Davos, Switzerland, . "A lot of my work starts with understanding how humans behave," Admoni said.