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An Affordance-Based Conceptual Framework for Spatial Behavior of Social Robots

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Sociality and Normativity for Robots

Part of the book series: Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality ((SIPS))

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Abstract

Socially aware robots have to coordinate their actions considering the spatial requirements of the humans with whom they interact. We propose a general framework based on the notion of affordances that generalizes geometrical accounts to the problem of human-aware placement of robot activities. The framework provides a conceptual instrument to take into account the heterogeneous abilities and affordances of humans, robots, and environmental entities. We discuss how knowledge about (socio-)spacial aspects of affordances can be used in various reasoning tasks relevant to human-robot interaction. Applying the notion of a practical reason, socially-aware robots are able to solve the social activity-placement problem.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In this context, “social space” refers to spatial structures that are significant for assessing the social appropriateness of agent behavior. Thus, the use of this notion is not limited to social spaces like the internet or public parks.

  2. 2.

    Regions that need to be free of obstacles for safety reasons can be marked in maps. However, more general mechanisms that model potential activities and their spatial requirements might be called for when service robots are brought into environments that are not completely mapped beforehand and that contain mobile artifacts providing affordances.

  3. 3.

    There already exists a robotic ATM prototype. Such machines might be deployed in casinos as pointed out in an online article that can be found on the internet: http://www.atmmarketplace.com/blogs/cash-at-your-service/

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Foundations of Artificial Intelligence Group, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Felix Lindner

  2. Department for Informatics, Knowledge and Language Processing Group, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Carola Eschenbach

Authors
  1. Felix Lindner
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  2. Carola Eschenbach
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Felix Lindner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Raul Hakli

  2. Research Unit for Robophilosophy, Department for Philosophy and History of Ideas, School of Culture and Society Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Johanna Seibt

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Lindner, F., Eschenbach, C. (2017). An Affordance-Based Conceptual Framework for Spatial Behavior of Social Robots. In: Hakli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Sociality and Normativity for Robots. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53133-5_7

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