Social Momentum: Design and Evaluation of a Framework for Socially Competent Robot Navigation

AbstractMobile robots struggle to integrate seamlessly in crowded environments such as pedestrian scenes, often disrupting human activity. One obstacle preventing their smooth integration is our limited understanding of how humans may perceive and react to robot motion. Motivated by recent studies highlighting the benefits of intent-expressive motion for robots operating close to humans, we describe Social Momentum (SM), a planning framework for legible robot motion generation in multiagent domains. We investigate the properties of motion generated by SM via two large-scale user studies: an online, video-based study (N = 180) focusing on the legibility of motion produced by SM and a lab study (N = 105) focusing on the perceptions of users navigating next to a robot running SM in a crowded space. Through statistical and thematic analyses of collected data, we present evidence suggesting that (a) motion generated by SM enables quick inference of the robot’s navigation strategy; (b) humans navigating close to a robot running SM follow comfortable, low-acceleration paths; and (c) robot motion generated by SM is positively perceived and indistinguishable from a teleoperated baseline. Through the discussion of experimental insights and lessons learned, this article aspires to inform future algorithmic and experimental design for social robot navigation.