Sound in human–robot interaction currently encompasses a wide range of approaches and methodologies not easily classified, analyzed or compared among projects. This edited book covers the state of the art in sound and robotics, aiming to gather existing approaches in a combined volume. Collecting chapters from world-leading academic and industry authors, Sound and Robotics: Speech, Non-Verbal Audio and Robotic Musicianship explores how robots can communicate through speech, non-verbal audio and music. The first set of chapters explores how robots use verbal communication, considering the possibilities of speech for human–robot interaction. The second section shifts to roles of non-verbal communication in HRI, including consequential sound, sonification and audio cues. The third and final section describes current approaches to robotic musicianship and their evaluation. This book is primarily aimed at HRI researchers, ranging from those who have never used sound to those very experienced with sound. Alongside robotic researchers, this book will present avenues for a diverse range of musicians, composers and sound designers to become introduced to the world of HRI and learn of potential creative directions in robotics.

Sound in human–robot interaction currently encompasses a wide range of approaches and methodologies not easily classified, analyzed or compared among projects. This edited book covers the state of the art in sound and robotics, aiming to gather existing approaches in a combined volume. Collecting chapters from world-leading academic and industry authors, Sound and Robotics: Speech, Non-Verbal Audio and Robotic Musicianship explores how robots can communicate through speech, non-verbal audio and music. The first set of chapters explores how robots use verbal communication, considering the possibilities of speech for human–robot interaction. The second section shifts to roles of non-verbal communication in HRI, including consequential sound, sonification and audio cues. The third and final section describes current approaches to robotic musicianship and their evaluation. This book is primarily aimed at HRI researchers, ranging from those who have never used sound to those very experienced with sound. Alongside robotic researchers, this book will present avenues for a diverse range of musicians, composers and sound designers to become introduced to the world of HRI and learn of potential creative directions in robotics.

This book discusses the principles, methodologies, and challenges of robotic musicianship through an in-depth review of the work conducted at the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT), where the concept was first developed. Robotic musicianship is a relatively new research field that focuses on the design and development of intelligent music-making machines. The motivation behind the field is to develop robots that not only generate music, but also collaborate with humans by listening and responding in an expressive and creative manner. This combination of human and machine creativity has the potential to surprise and inspire us to play, listen, compose, and think about music in new ways. The book provides an in-depth view of the robotic platforms designed at the GTCMT Robotic Musicianship Group, including the improvisational robotic percussionists Haile and Shimon, the personal robotic companion Shimi, and a number of wearable robots, such as the Robotic Drumming Prosthesis, The Third Drumming Arm, and the Skywalker Piano Hand. The book discusses numerous research studies based on these platforms in the context of five main principles: Listen like a Human, Play Like a Machine, Be Social, Watch and Learn, and Wear It.

Let's children press the buttons to make the noises of the different robots.

Musical robotics is a multi- and trans-disciplinary research area involving a wide range of different domains that contribute to its development, including: computer science, multimodal interfaces and processing, artificial intelligence, electronics, robotics, mechatronics and more. A musical robot requires many different complex systems to work together; integrating musical representation, techniques, expressions, detailed analysis and controls, for both playing and listening. The development of interactive multimodal systems provides advancements which enable enhanced human-machine interaction and novel possibilities for embodied robotic platforms. This volume is focused on this highly exciting interdisciplinary field. This book consists of 14 chapters highlighting different aspects of musical activities and interactions, discussing cutting edge research related to interactive multimodal systems and their integration with robots to further enhance musical understanding, interpretation, performance, education and enjoyment. It is dichotomized into two sections: Section I focuses on understanding elements of musical performance and expression while Section II concentrates on musical robots and automated instruments. Musical Robots and Interactive Multimodal Systems provides an introduction and foundation for researchers, students and practitioners to key achievements and current research trends on interactive multimodal systems and musical robotics.

Rapid advances in the field of robotics have made it possible to use robots not just in industrial automation but also in entertainment, rehabilitation, and home service. Since robots will likely affect many aspects of human existence, fundamental questions of human-robot interaction must be formulated and, if at all possible, resolved. Some of these questions are addressed in this collection of papers by leading HRI researchers.

This is the first book to describe how Autonomous Virtual Humans and Social Robots can interact with real people, be aware of the environment around them, and react to various situations. Researchers from around the world present the main techniques for tracking and analysing humans and their behaviour and contemplate the potential for these virtual humans and robots to replace or stand in for their human counterparts, tackling areas such as awareness and reactions to real world stimuli and using the same modalities as humans do: verbal and body gestures, facial expressions and gaze to aid seamless human-computer interaction (HCI). The research presented in this volume is split into three sections: ·User Understanding through Multisensory Perception: deals with the analysis and recognition of a given situation or stimuli, addressing issues of facial recognition, body gestures and sound localization. ·Facial and Body Modelling Animation: presents the methods used in modelling and animating faces and bodies to generate realistic motion. ·Modelling Human Behaviours: presents the behavioural aspects of virtual humans and social robots when interacting and reacting to real humans and each other. Context Aware Human-Robot and Human-Agent Interaction would be of great use to students, academics and industry specialists in areas like Robotics, HCI, and Computer Graphics.

Roz the robot discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island with no memory of where she is from or why she is there, and her only hope of survival is to try to learn about her new environment from the island's hostile inhabitants.

Taking a completely hands-on approach, using cheap and easily available robotics kits, Practical and Experimental Robotics provides a detailed exploration of the construction, theory, and experiments for different types of robots. With topics ranging from basic stamp microcontrollers to biped and propeller based robots, the text contains laboratory experiments, examples with solutions, and case studies. The authors begin with a review of the essential elements of electronics and mechanics. They describe the basic mechanical construction and electrical control of the robot, then give at least one example of how to operate the robot using microcontrollers or software. The book includes a reference chapter on Basic Stamp Microcontollers with example code pieces and a chapter completely devoted to PC interfacing. Each chapter begins with the fundamentals, then moves on to advanced topics, thus building a foundation for learning from the ground up. Building a bridge between technicians who have hands-on experience and engineers with a deeper insight into the workings, the book covers a range of machines, from arm, wheel, and leg robots to flying robots and robotic submarines and boats. Unlike most books in this field, this one offers a complete set of topics from electronics, mechanics, and computer interface and programming, making it an independent source for knowledge and understanding of robotics.