Showing robots how to follow people using a broomstick interface

Robots are poised to enter our everyday environments such as our homes and offices, contexts that present unique questions such as the style of the robot´s actions. Style-oriented characteristics are difficult to define programmatically, a problem that is particularly prominent for a robot´s interactive behaviors, those that must react accordingly to dynamic actions of people. In this paper, we present a technique for programming the style of how a robot should follow a person by demonstration, such that non-technical designers and users can directly create the style of following using their existing skill sets. We envision that simple physical interfaces like ours can be used by nontechnical people to design the style of a wide range of robotic behaviors.