Implicit Communication through Distributed Sound Design: Exploring a New Modality in Human-Robot Interaction

Abstract

As robots find their way into homes, workplaces, and public spaces, rich and effective human-robot interaction will play an essential role in their success. While most sound-related research in the field of HRI focuses on speech and semantic-free utterances, the potential of sound as an implicit non-verbal channel of communication has only recently received attention and remains largely unexplored. This research will bring design approaches from the fields of sound design and spatial audio into the context of human-robot interaction to influence human perception of robot characteristics and refine non-verbal auditory communication. It will implement sound design systems into various physical robots and evaluate their effect through user studies. By developing design principles for the sonic augmentation of robots, we aim to provide the HRI community with new tools to enrich the way robots communicate with humans.