The success of Anki Vector in research in Human Robotics Interaction (HRI)

One of the few successes that Anki robots, Vector and Cozmo, (now owned by Digital Dream Labs) have had is in the exploration of Human…

One of the few successes that Anki robots, Vector and Cozmo, (now owned by Digital Dream Labs) have had is in the exploration of Human Robot Interaction (HRI). HRI is a multi-discliplinary research field that explores how humans perceive robots and interact with them. This is a very important research area because the success of robotics in everyday environments such as the home, schools, or shopping malls, depends on how well humans deal with the presence of robots and cooperate with them on tasks that the robots are designed to let the humans accomplish. Having a healthy and friendly interaction between the human and the robot is the key for successful deployment of robots closer to our daily lives.

It turns out that both Vector and Cozmo are receiving significant adoption in the community of HRI researchers. The recently concluded ACM/IEEE Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI 2021) has many examples of research using Vector and Cozmo. This article summarizes some interesting p…