Intelligently manipulating objects, especially in collaboration with humans, is still a widely researched topic in robotics. This project aims to create intelligent methods for natural and intuitive human-robot interaction (HRI), with the goal of equipping robots with the required intelligence to understand a given task in such a way to actively support a human completing it. The focus will be on natural, intuitive tool handover in a work environment, such as an operating theatre, a factory floor or the extreme environment of a nuclear power plant.
While humans (amongst each other) conduct handover tasks with great ease, there are still many shortcomings when attempting to carry out this HRI task using existing robotic systems. The project aims to create new AI-based approaches to instil robots with capabilities that allow them to interactively negotiate object 'affordances' between humans and robots and to dynamically adapt to shifting view points during the handover for reliable HRI.