Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

Human-robot interaction is an interdisciplinary field studying how people and robots communicate, collaborate, and share physical space effectively and safely. HRI research spans safety standards (ISO/TS 15066 for collaborative robots), user interface design for teleoperation, natural language instruction, legible robot motion (making robot intent readable to bystanders), and social robotics (using gaze, gesture, and speech for non-verbal communication). In industrial co-bot deployments, HRI directly determines whether workers accept and effectively use robots alongside them. Good HRI design reduces accidents, improves throughput, and lowers training burden on the human side.