We are investigating the cooperation of different (heterogeneous) social robots and how users can configure them for everyday applications.
As a service robot in cooperation with humans, it must be possible to configure the robots for domain experts without further training and without in-depth technical knowledge. For example, tools for visual programming that are intuitive to use can be used for this purpose.
This is what we developed an open-source software tool for, called Node-(RED)2 (Node-RED-based Robotics Empowerment Designer) – available on Github: https://github.com/Robotics-Empowerment-Designer/
See a demonstration in the video. It is described in detail in our recent publication:
Michel Weike, Kai Ruske, Reinhard Gerndt, and Tobias Doernbach (2024): Enabling Untrained Users to Shape Real-World Robot Behavior Using an Intuitive Visual Programming Tool in Human-Robot Interaction Scenarios, International Symposium on Technological Advances in Human-Robot Interaction, https://doi.org/10.1145/3648536.3648541
This video shows a bartender scenario created using Node-(RED)².
We are also going to showcase our work and discuss research directions for efficient visual programming in multi-robot interaction scenarios at the
IEEE RO-MAN 2025 Workshop on
Efficient Visual Programming of Multi-Robot Behavior for Untrained Users – VisProgMR