Human-Robot Interaction

Also known as HRI

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Overview

Human-robot interaction examines how people and robots understand one another and coordinate in settings such as collaborative work, social navigation, healthcare, and the home. Researchers combine multimodal perception and language models with shared-control policies, adaptive planning, haptics, and interfaces such as augmented reality; they study these systems through user experiments, field deployments, and benchmarks for tasks like handover and social navigation. The field also draws on design research and qualitative methods to understand trust, accessibility, privacy, agency, and how interactions affect different people and groups. A central challenge is translating strong task performance in controlled tests into safe, reliable, and socially appropriate behavior in real-world settings without increasing workload or reducing human control.

Latest papers

CardsList

453 papers44 papers in the last four weeks, down 31% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

  1. Safe Probabilistic Planning for Human-Robot Interaction using Conformal Risk Control

    Mar 11, 2026Jake Gonzales, Kazuki Mizuta, Karen Leung +1Human-Robot InteractionSafe Robot Navigation

    University of Washington, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering · University of Washington, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

  2. Design of a Robot-Assisted Chemical Dialysis System

    Mar 10, 2026Diane Jung, Caleb Escobedo, Noah Liska +4Laboratory AutomationScientific Workflow Automation

    University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

  3. TATIC: Task-Aware Temporal Learning for Human Intent Inference from Physical Corrections in Human-Robot Collaboration

    Mar 10, 2026Jiurun Song, Xiao Liang, Minghui ZhengHuman-Robot CollaborationHuman-Robot Interaction

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

  4. Characterizing Healthy & Post-Stroke Neuromotor Behavior During 6D Upper-Limb Isometric Gaming: Implications for Design of End-Effector Rehabilitation Robot Interfaces

    Mar 10, 2026Ajay Anand, Gabriel Parra, Chad A. Berghoff +1Surface ElectromyographyAssistive Robotics

    The authors are with the Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, and Mathematics, the Kahlert School of Computing, and the Robotics Center at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

  5. Uncertainty, Vagueness, and Ambiguity in Human-Robot Interaction: Why Conceptualization Matters

    Mar 10, 2026Xiaowen Sun, Cornelius Weber, Matthias Kerzel +2Human-Robot Interaction

    The Authors are with the Knowledge Technology Group, Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, 22527 Hamburg, Germany.

  6. Embodied Human Simulation for Quantitative Design and Analysis of Interactive Robotics

    Mar 10, 2026Chenhui Zuo, Jinhao Xu, Michael Qian Vergnolle +1Musculoskeletal ModelingRobotics

    The authors are with the School of Aerospace Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China 100084.

  7. Improving through Interaction: Searching Behavioral Representation Spaces with CMA-ES-IG

    Mar 9, 2026Nathaniel Dennler, Zhonghao Shi, Yiran Tao +3Active Preference LearningPreference Learning

    CSAIL/AeroAstro, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. · Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California.

  8. Decision-Aware Uncertainty Evaluation of Vision-Language Model-Based Early Action Anticipation for Human-Robot Interaction

    Mar 9, 2026Zhaoda Du, Michael Bowman, Qiaojie Zheng +1Uncertainty Estimation for VLA ModelsVLMs for Robotics

    Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA · Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cancer Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

  9. Impact of Different Failures on a Robot's Perceived Reliability

    Mar 9, 2026Andrew Violette, Zhanxin Wu, Haruki Nishimura +5Trust in HRIRobot Failure Recovery

    Department of Computer Science, Cornell University · Toyota Research Institute (TRI). · Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University

  10. Age-Related Differences in the Perception of Eye-Gaze from a Social Robot

    Mar 9, 2026Lucas Morillo-Mendez, Martien G. S. Schrooten, Oscar Martinez MozosHuman-Robot InteractionSocial Robotics

    Örebro University, Fakultetsgatan 1, 702 81, Örebro, Sweden

  11. Human-Aware Robot Behaviour in Self-Driving Labs

    Mar 9, 2026Satheeshkumar Veeramani, Anna Kisil, Abigail Bentley +3Human-Robot CollaborationHuman-Robot Interaction

    Department of Chemistry University of Liverpool United Kingdom · School of Computer Science and Informatics University of Liverpool United Kingdom · School of Computer Science and Informatics Department of Chemistry University of Liverpool United Kingdom

  12. POIROT: Investigating Direct Tangible vs. Digitally Mediated Interaction and Attitude Moderation in Multi-party Murder Mystery Games

    Mar 9, 2026Wen Chen, Rongxi Chen, Shankai Chen +5Human-Robot InteractionHuman-Object Interaction

    Tsinghua University Beijing, China · University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, USA · Syracuse University Syracuse, USA +2

  13. Identifying Influential Actions in Human-Robot Interactions

    Mar 9, 2026Haoyang Jiang, Chenfei Xu, Yuya Okadome +1Human-Robot InteractionSocial Robotics

    Guardian Robot Project, R-IH, Riken, Kyoto, Japan · Faculty of Engineering, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia · Graduate school of engineering science, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan +1

  14. Knowing When to Ask: Resolving Uncertainty in Human-Robot Joint Planning via Explicit Dialogue and Implicit Intent Cues

    Mar 8, 2026Zeyu Fang, Yuxin Lin, Cheng Liu +6Human-Robot CollaborationRobot Task Planning

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Washington University · the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University · the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, George Washington University

  15. Directing the Robot: Scaffolding Creative Human-AI-Robot Interaction

    Mar 8, 2026Jordan Aiko Deja, Isidro Butaslac, Nicko Reginio Caluya +1Human-Robot InteractionHuman-Robot Collaboration

    De La Salle University Manila, Philippines · Nara Institute of Science and Technology Ikoma, Japan · Ritsumeikan University Osaka, Japan +1

  16. Morphology-Independent Facial Expression Imitation for Human-Face Robots

    Mar 7, 2026Xu Chen, Rui Gao, Che Sun +4Robot Imitation LearningHumanoid Robotics

  17. Material Driven HRI Design: Aesthetics as Explainability

    Mar 6, 2026Natalie Friedman, Kevin Weatherwax, Chengchao ZhuHuman-Robot InteractionSocial Robotics

    BTP SAP Innovation Palo Alto, CA, USA

  18. RoboCritics: Enabling Reliable End-to-End LLM Robot Programming through Expert-Informed Critics

    Mar 6, 2026Callie Y. Kim, Nathan Thomas White, Evan He +2Robot SafetyProgram Synthesis

    Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

  19. Dual-Agent Multiple-Model Reinforcement Learning for Event-Triggered Human-Robot Co-Adaptation in Decoupled Task Spaces

    Mar 6, 2026Yaqi Li, Zhengqi Han, Huifang Liu +1Human-Robot InteractionRL for Robotics

    Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Technology Sydney, Australia · College of Medical information and Artificial intelligence, Shandong First Medical University (Shandong Academy of Medical Science) 6699 Qingdao Road, Jinan, Shandong, China

  20. Vision-Language System using Open-Source LLMs for Gestures in Medical Interpreter Robots

    Mar 5, 2026Thanh-Tung Ngo, Emma Murphy, Robert J. RossHealthcare RoboticsHuman-Robot Interaction

    Technological University Dublin Dublin, Ireland

  21. RFM-HRI : A Multimodal Dataset of Medical Robot Failure, User Reaction and Recovery Preferences for Item Retrieval Tasks

    Mar 5, 2026Yashika Batra, Giuliano Pioldi, Promise Ekpo +5Human-Robot InteractionRobot Failure Recovery

    Cornell University, Cornell Tech, United States of America · Weill Cornell Medicine, United States of America

  22. NEFFY 2.0: A Breathing Companion Robot: User-Centered Design and Findings from a Study with Ukrainian Refugees

    Mar 5, 2026Ilona Buchem, Jessica Kazubski, Charly GoerkeHuman-Robot InteractionSocial Robotics

    Berlin University of Applied Sciences Berlin Germany

  23. Rethinking the Role of Collaborative Robots in Rehabilitation

    Mar 5, 2026Vivek Gupte, Shalutha Rajapakshe, Emmanuel SenftHuman-Robot CollaborationAssistive Robotics

    Idiap Research Institute & EPFL, Switzerland · Idiap Research Institute, Switzerland

  24. Lightweight Visual Reasoning for Socially-Aware Robots

    Mar 4, 2026Alessio Galatolo, Ronald Cumbal, Alexandros Rouchitsas +3VLM ReasoningVLMs for Robotics

    Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, Sweden.

  25. MRPoS: Mixed Reality-Based Robot Navigation Interface Using Spatial Pointing and Speech with Large Language Model

    Mar 4, 2026Eduardo Iglesius, Masato Kobayashi, Yuki UranishiRobot NavigationHuman-Robot Interaction

    The University of Osaka · Kobe University

  26. MistyPilot: An Agentic Fast-Slow Thinking LLM Framework for Misty Social Robots

    Mar 4, 2026Xiao Wang, Lu Dong, Jingchen Sun +3Agentic AI for RoboticsLLM Agent Orchestration

    State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA

  27. Robotic Grasping and Placement Controlled by EEG-Based Hybrid Visual and Motor Imagery

    Mar 3, 2026Yichang Liu, Tianyu Wang, Ziyi Ye +4Human-Robot InteractionRobotic Grasping

    Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University · School of Data Science, Fudan University · Shanghai Innovation Institute +3

  28. Architectural HRI: Towards a Robotic Paradigm Shift in Human-Building Interaction

    Mar 3, 2026Alex Binh Vinh Duc NguyenHuman-Robot Interaction

    University of Antwerp Antwerp, Belgium · KU Leuven Leuven, Belgium

  29. Learning Therapist Policy from Therapist-Exoskeleton-Patient Interaction

    Mar 2, 2026Grayson Snyder, Lorenzo Vianello, Levi Hargrove +2Assistive RoboticsHuman-Robot Interaction

    Center for Robotics and Biosystems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. · Legs and Walking Lab, Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, IL, USA.

  30. Non-verbal Real-time Human-AI Interaction in Constrained Robotic Environments

    Mar 2, 2026Dragos Costea, Alina Marcu, Cristina Lazar +1Human-AI InteractionHuman Motion Generation

    National University of Science and Technology Politehnica of Bucharest, 313 Splaiul Independentei, Bucharest, Romania · Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania · NORCE - Norwegian Research Center, Norway