Project | Being There: Humans and Robots in Public Spaces

Oct 2013–Jan 2017
Social Robotics • Teleoperation

How can telepresence via socially interactive robots help us to reclaim public space as a forum for good?

Being There: Humans and Robots in Public Spaces was a multi-institutional EPSRC project exploring how people interact with robots and remote “proxy” presences in real-world environments. During the project, I investigated issues of social behaviour, trust, identity, and inclusion in shared public spaces. My paper "Shaking Hands and Cooperation in Tele-present Human-Robot Negotiation" attracted international press and was awarded best paper at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '15).

Partners: Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Oxford Internet Institute, Queen Mary University of London, University of Bath, University of Cambridge, University of Exeter & University of Oxford.

Project Website: http://www.being-there.org.uk/

Funding Body: EPSRC

Grant Reference: EP/L00416X/1

Role: Research Associate

Videos

Gallery

Lillian and William Todd Jones: Puppeteers with our custom Nao armature

Puppet Presence Team

Chris presenting - via a robot - at the Pint of Science Festival, The Bell. Bath

Puppet Presence: The Rusty Squid designed custom armature

Puppeteering with Nao

Mark Levene testing an Oculus Rift VR headset

Capturing facial emotions

Telepresent motion capture testing at Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Testing emotion recognition with Danae and Hatice

Meeting the children: Nao @ Bath Taps into Science

Shaking Hands And Cooperation In Tele-Present Human-Robot Negotiation

Nao, the CREATE lab robot

"Puppet Presence" We The Curious, Bristol.

Being There Project Postcard

Chris at Bath Taps into Science

Lord Kitchenao

Testing the Puppet Presence system, We the Curious (Bristol).

Publications

Use of a Non-Human Robot Audience to Induce Stress Reactivity in Human Participants: Julie Turner-Cobb, Mashal Asif, James E. Turner, Chris Bevan and Danaë Stanton Fraser. 2019. Computers in Human Behavior. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.05.019.

Investigating Social Evaluative Threat (SET) Using A Robotic Stress Testing Panel: Julie M Turner-Cobb, Mashal Asif, Chris Bevan, Danaë Stanton Fraser, and James E. Turner. 2017. Psychosomatic Medicine. American Psychosomatic Society.

Evaluating a mobile spontaneous eye blink tracker for use in tele-presence HRI as a low bandwidth social communicative cue: Chris Bevan and Danaë Stanton Fraser. 2016. 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN '16). https://doi.org/10.1109/ROMAN.2016.7745182.

Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Social Robots for Public Settings: Chris Bevan, Paul Bremner, Danaë Stanton Fraser and Hatice Gunes. 2015. International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2015. IEEE/RSJ.

Shaking Hands and Cooperation in Tele-present Human-Robot Negotiation: Chris Bevan and Danaë Stanton Fraser. 2015. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 247-254. https://doi.org/10.1145/2696454.2696490.

Being there: humans and robots in public spaces: Paul Bremner, Niki Trigoni, Ian Brown, Hatice Gunes, Chris Bevan, Danaë Stanton Fraser and Mark Levine. 2013. In G. Herrmann, M. J. Pearson, A. Lenz, P. Bremner, A. Spiers, & U. Leonards (Eds.), Social Robotics: 5th International Conference, ICSR 2013, Bristol, UK. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02675-6.

Press

Why shaking hands matters (even when it's virtual): University of Bath. May 11, 2015.

Shaking hands makes for better deals say scientists: Even if it's the cold metal grip of NAO the robot: Daily Mail. May 11, 2015.

Handshakes so effective at building trust during business negotiations that they work even when one of the parties is a robot: The Independent. May 11, 2015.

Why shaking hands is still a big deal: The Daily Telegraph. May 11, 2015.

Can humans get on with robots?: Financial Times. Jan. 3, 2014.

New project to measure human interaction with robots: University of Bath. Dec. 11, 2013.

Awards

Best Paper Award: Shaking Hands and Cooperation in Tele-Present Human-Robot Negotiation. ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2015).