HINT-Blimp: Human INTent Inference from Multimodal Cues for Robotic Blimps

Abstract:In human-robot interaction, traditional interfaces such as joysticks and handheld tablets introduce latency into navigation tasks and require the operator's explicit attention on the device, instead of the robot. We propose a new human-robot interaction framework in which a human communicates intent directly through sparse multimodal signals such as physical pushes and spoken commands. Human intent is represented as a parameterized linear dynamical system (LDS) that encodes the desired goal and motion behavior. The robot estimates this intent (parameters) online using a particle filter, where each particle represents a candidate LDS hypothesis and is reweighted online as new information becomes available. We validate this framework on a robotic blimp, whose inherent compliance and collision tolerance make it well-suited for repeated physical interaction. Experiments with multiple participants across 300 trials show that combining pushes and voice commands identifies the intended goal in 86% of trials within at most five interactions, with most trials resolved in two. The inferred dynamical systems can also produce curved trajectories that avoid obstacles known only to the human.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2609.27154 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2609.27154v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.27154 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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