Human-approaching trajectories for a person-sized balancing robot

This paper explores how a large, dynamic robot should approach humans in a collaborative task. We conducted a design study to understand the experience of collaboration and the perceived effort in collaboration. In the study, 15 participants collaborated with the ballbot, a heavy, dynamically-stable, human-sized mobile robot. The ballbot executed approach trajectories, reaching speeds up to 0.6 m/s. Participants found the experience of collaboration to be positive, and we discovered that a curved trajectory was not perceived to add effort to the collaboration.