Abstract
This paper applies information theoretic principles to the investigation of physical human-robot interaction. Drawing from the study of human perception and neural encoding, information theoretic approaches offer a perspective that enables quantitatively interpreting the body as an information channel and bodily motion as an information-carrying signal. We show that ergodicity, which can be interpreted as the degree to which a trajectory encodes information about a task, correctly predicts changes due to reduction of a person’s existing deficit or the addition of algorithmic assistance. The measure also captures changes from training with robotic assistance. Other common measures for assessment failed to capture at least one of these effects. This information-based interpretation of motion can be applied broadly, in the evaluation and design of human-machine interactions, in learning by demonstration paradigms, or in human motion analysis.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | eaav6079 |
| Journal | Science Robotics |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 29 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 10 2019 |
Funding
We thank H. A. Dewald for collecting the data in Fig. 2. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG) Program, by the NSF under grant 1637764, and by the NIH under grant R01-HD039343. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DoD, NDSEG program, or of the NSF.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Medicine