Report on the first international workshop on virtual, augmented, and mixed reality for human-robot interaction

Abstract

The first International Workshop on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality for Human-Robot Interaction (VAM-HRI) was held in 2018 in conjunction with the 13th International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction. This workshop brought together researchers from the fields of human-robot interaction (HRI), robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual, augmented, and mixed reality to identify challenges and opportunities in mixed-reality interactions between humans and robots (Williams et al. 2018). Virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality technologies have been studied for many years in the broader human-computer interaction and computer graphics communities; however, there has been little prior integration with robotics. Recent industry developments are beginning to produce mature, con-sumer-grade VR and AR devices, and are thus providing a new opportunity for research that investigates how such technologies might improve human-robot interaction. This was the first workshop of its kind at an academic AI or robotics conference to explore the integration between mixed-reality technologies and autonomous systems. This inaugural workshop featured a keynote talk from Blair MacIntyre (Mozilla, Georgia Tech), a panel discussion, and 30 papers presented as lightning talks or posters. In this report, we provide a brief survey of the papers presented at the workshop.