Florian Lier - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Florian Lier
2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Human Agent Interaction - HAI '16, 2016
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '14, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Autonomous robots are highly relevant targets for interaction studies, but can... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Autonomous robots are highly relevant targets for interaction studies, but can exhibit behavioral variability that confounds experimental validity. Currently, testing on real systems is the only means to prevent this, but remains very labour-intensive and often happens too late. To improve this situation, we are working towards early testing by means of partial simulation, with automated assessment, and based upon continuous software integration to prevent regressions. We will introduce the concept and describe a proof-of-concept that demonstrates fast feedback and coherent experiment results across repeated trials.
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Human Agent Interaction - HAI '16, 2016
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016
Lnai Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Oct 20, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do ... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do save us a lot of time and effort compared to regular deployment of complex software architectures on complex hardware, simulators are also known to evade many of the real issues that robots need to manage when they enter the real world. Because humans are the paragon of dynamic, unpredictable, complex, real world entities, simulation of human-robot interactions may look condemn to fail, or, in the best case, to be mostly useless. This collective article reports on five independent applications of the MORSE simulator in the field of human-robot interaction: It appears that simulation is already useful, if not essential, to successfully carry out research in the field of HRI, and sometimes in scenarios we do not anticipate.
3Rd Workshop on Semantic Publishing, 2013
For Open Science to be widely adopted, a strong institutional support for scientists will be esse... more For Open Science to be widely adopted, a strong institutional support for scientists will be essential. Bielefeld University and the associated Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) have developed a platform that enables researchers to manage their publications and the underlying research data in an easy and efficient way. Following a Linked Data approach we integrate this data into a unified linked data store and interlink it with additional data sources from inside the university and outside sources like DBpedia. Based on the existing platform, a concrete case study from the domain of biology is implemented that releases optical motion tracking data of stick insect locomotion. We investigate the cost and usefulness of such a detailed, domain-specific semantic enrichment in order to evaluate whether this approach might be considered for large-scale deployment.
Founded on a vision of a human-friendly technology that adapts to users’ needs and is easy und in... more Founded on a vision of a human-friendly technology that adapts to users’ needs and is easy und intuitive for ordinary people to use, CITEC has established an exciting new field: Cognitive Interaction Technology. It aims to elucidate the principles and mechanisms of cognition in order to find ways of replicating them in technology and thus enable a new deep level of service and assistance. In order to proceed in this highly interdisciplinary field, appropriate research platforms and infrastructure are needed. The anthropomorphic robot head “Flobi” combines state-of-the-art sensing functionality with an exterior that elicits a sympathetic emotion response. In order to support several lines of research and at the same time ensure the maintainability of the software and hardware components, a virtual realization of the Flobi head has been proposed that allows an efficient prototyping, systematic testing, and software development in a continuous integration framework.
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '14, 2014
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012
Logo of Bielefeld University. Publications at Bielefeld University. PUB. University from AZ. Univ... more Logo of Bielefeld University. Publications at Bielefeld University. PUB. University from AZ. University: uni.news; About us; Faculties / Departments; Research; Studying in Bielefeld; Library; Service and Administration; Culture. | International: International Office; ZiF - Center for Interdisciplinary Research; Guide. | Information for: Students from abroad; Scholars; Young Researchers; Academic Staff; International Doctoral Candidates; Guests; Press. Lupe: University ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do ... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do save us a lot of time and effort compared to regular deployment of complex software architectures on complex hardware, simulators are also known to evade many of the real issues that robots need to manage when they enter the real world. Because humans are the paragon of dynamic, unpredictable, complex, real world entities, simulation of human-robot interactions may look condemn to fail, or, in the best case, to be mostly useless. This collective article reports on five independent applications of the MORSE simulator in the field of human-robot interaction: It appears that simulation is already useful, if not essential, to successfully carry out research in the field of HRI, and sometimes in scenarios we do not anticipate.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Research on robot systems either integrating a large number of capabilities in... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Research on robot systems either integrating a large number of capabilities in a single architecture or displaying outstanding performance in a single domain achieved considerable progress over the last years. Results are typically validated through experimental evaluation or demonstrated live, e.g., at robotics competitions. While common robot hardware, simulation and programming platforms yield an improved basis, many of the described experiments still cannot be reproduced easily by interested researchers to confirm the reported findings. We consider this a critical challenge for experimental robotics. Hence, we address this problem with a novel process which facilitates the reproduction of robotics experiments. We identify major obstacles to experiment replication and introduce an integrated approach that allows (i) aggregation and discovery of required research artifacts, (ii) automated software build and deployment, as well as (iii) experiment description, repeatable execution and evaluation. We explain the usage of the introduced process along an exemplary robotics experiment and discuss our approach in the context of current ecosystems for robot programming and simulation.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Semantic Systems - I-SEMANTICS '12, 2012
Abstract Researchers and other knowledge workers frequently produce and use diverse research arte... more Abstract Researchers and other knowledge workers frequently produce and use diverse research artefacts such as papers, data sets, experiment specifications, software, etc. In this, they are often faced with unclear relationships (eg, which version of a software was in use for a particular paper), creating unnecessary work and potentially errors. Semantic web technologies can provide metadata as well as explicit, specific links between the artefacts. However, data acquisition and perceived utility are potential stumbling blocks for adoption ...
2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013
ABSTRACT A key issue for interactive robots is smooth and natural motion. When robots are tele-op... more ABSTRACT A key issue for interactive robots is smooth and natural motion. When robots are tele-operated, e.g. for tele presence or during "Wizard of Oz" style studies, this requires an intuitive and responsive control interface. Furthermore, this interface should not interfere with perceiving the robot's sensors. In this work we will present a system that allows a human operator to control an anthropomorphic robotic head by wearing a combined motion capture and display helmet. It allows the direct and live transfer of human facial expressions, gaze and head movements to a humanoid robotic head, and at the same time displays the scene as perceived by the robot's vision sensors. Beside direct control, the system can also record human motion datasets for analysis or later playback. Furthermore, the presented system is cost-effective, and relies to a large extent on commercially available off-the-shelf products. The remaining parts and software are made freely available for research use.
Agenda Introduction The vision Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Collaborative Resea... more Agenda Introduction The vision Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Collaborative Research Environment Collaborative development environment Continuous integration server and Open research/data server Pub service by Bielefeld University Library Cognitive Interaction Toolkit Platform + Live Demo Conclusion and Discussion 1 Julian is a researcher in the field of neurocognition and has developed a new method with corresponding software toolset that he has evaluated thoroughly. Julian likes the idea of Open Research and makes his software and his test data available. He marks the current state of both software and data and adds a description that links both research output artifacts to each other, the field of research and his institution and himself.
A robot's software ecosystem often comprises a set of heterogeneous software components, acquirin... more A robot's software ecosystem often comprises a set of heterogeneous software components, acquiring, exchanging, fusioning, and deriving data to trigger a desired behaviour, state, or action of the robot. Due to the nature of component based development [2], and component interaction respectively, an essential, and often crucial part of robotic system development is frequent integration testing. While unit tests already provide an established way of checking modelled constraints on single components, tests including complete component based (sub-)systems have not been widely studied in robotics so far. We have identified the following problem statements with respect to component based system testing so far.
Robot simulators, like the MORSE[1] project, provide a safe and readily available environment for... more Robot simulators, like the MORSE[1] project, provide a safe and readily available environment for robot system testing, reducing the effort for testing drastically. In principle, simulation testing is automatable, and thus a good target for Continuous Integration (CI)[2] testing. However, so far, high-level scenario tests still require complex component setup and configuration [4] before they can be run in the simulator. An added complication is, that there is no standard for starting, configuring, or monitoring software components on todays robots. Often, high-level tests are carried out manually, implementing a tailored solution, e.g, via shell scripts or launch files[5], for a specific system setup. Besides the effort of manual execution and supervision, current tests mostly do not take timing and orchestration, i.e., required process start-up sequence, into account. Furthermore, successful execution of components is not verified, which might lead to subsequent errors during the execution chain. Most importantly, all this knowledge about the test and its environment is implicit, often hidden in the actual implementation of the tailored test suite.
2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2016
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Human Agent Interaction - HAI '16, 2016
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '14, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Autonomous robots are highly relevant targets for interaction studies, but can... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Autonomous robots are highly relevant targets for interaction studies, but can exhibit behavioral variability that confounds experimental validity. Currently, testing on real systems is the only means to prevent this, but remains very labour-intensive and often happens too late. To improve this situation, we are working towards early testing by means of partial simulation, with automated assessment, and based upon continuous software integration to prevent regressions. We will introduce the concept and describe a proof-of-concept that demonstrates fast feedback and coherent experiment results across repeated trials.
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Human Agent Interaction - HAI '16, 2016
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016
Lnai Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Oct 20, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do ... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do save us a lot of time and effort compared to regular deployment of complex software architectures on complex hardware, simulators are also known to evade many of the real issues that robots need to manage when they enter the real world. Because humans are the paragon of dynamic, unpredictable, complex, real world entities, simulation of human-robot interactions may look condemn to fail, or, in the best case, to be mostly useless. This collective article reports on five independent applications of the MORSE simulator in the field of human-robot interaction: It appears that simulation is already useful, if not essential, to successfully carry out research in the field of HRI, and sometimes in scenarios we do not anticipate.
3Rd Workshop on Semantic Publishing, 2013
For Open Science to be widely adopted, a strong institutional support for scientists will be esse... more For Open Science to be widely adopted, a strong institutional support for scientists will be essential. Bielefeld University and the associated Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) have developed a platform that enables researchers to manage their publications and the underlying research data in an easy and efficient way. Following a Linked Data approach we integrate this data into a unified linked data store and interlink it with additional data sources from inside the university and outside sources like DBpedia. Based on the existing platform, a concrete case study from the domain of biology is implemented that releases optical motion tracking data of stick insect locomotion. We investigate the cost and usefulness of such a detailed, domain-specific semantic enrichment in order to evaluate whether this approach might be considered for large-scale deployment.
Founded on a vision of a human-friendly technology that adapts to users’ needs and is easy und in... more Founded on a vision of a human-friendly technology that adapts to users’ needs and is easy und intuitive for ordinary people to use, CITEC has established an exciting new field: Cognitive Interaction Technology. It aims to elucidate the principles and mechanisms of cognition in order to find ways of replicating them in technology and thus enable a new deep level of service and assistance. In order to proceed in this highly interdisciplinary field, appropriate research platforms and infrastructure are needed. The anthropomorphic robot head “Flobi” combines state-of-the-art sensing functionality with an exterior that elicits a sympathetic emotion response. In order to support several lines of research and at the same time ensure the maintainability of the software and hardware components, a virtual realization of the Flobi head has been proposed that allows an efficient prototyping, systematic testing, and software development in a continuous integration framework.
Proceedings of the 2014 ACM/IEEE international conference on Human-robot interaction - HRI '14, 2014
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2012
Logo of Bielefeld University. Publications at Bielefeld University. PUB. University from AZ. Univ... more Logo of Bielefeld University. Publications at Bielefeld University. PUB. University from AZ. University: uni.news; About us; Faculties / Departments; Research; Studying in Bielefeld; Library; Service and Administration; Culture. | International: International Office; ZiF - Center for Interdisciplinary Research; Guide. | Information for: Students from abroad; Scholars; Young Researchers; Academic Staff; International Doctoral Candidates; Guests; Press. Lupe: University ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do ... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Simulation in robotics is often a love-hate relationship: while simulators do save us a lot of time and effort compared to regular deployment of complex software architectures on complex hardware, simulators are also known to evade many of the real issues that robots need to manage when they enter the real world. Because humans are the paragon of dynamic, unpredictable, complex, real world entities, simulation of human-robot interactions may look condemn to fail, or, in the best case, to be mostly useless. This collective article reports on five independent applications of the MORSE simulator in the field of human-robot interaction: It appears that simulation is already useful, if not essential, to successfully carry out research in the field of HRI, and sometimes in scenarios we do not anticipate.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2014
PRE PRINT VERSION] Research on robot systems either integrating a large number of capabilities in... more PRE PRINT VERSION] Research on robot systems either integrating a large number of capabilities in a single architecture or displaying outstanding performance in a single domain achieved considerable progress over the last years. Results are typically validated through experimental evaluation or demonstrated live, e.g., at robotics competitions. While common robot hardware, simulation and programming platforms yield an improved basis, many of the described experiments still cannot be reproduced easily by interested researchers to confirm the reported findings. We consider this a critical challenge for experimental robotics. Hence, we address this problem with a novel process which facilitates the reproduction of robotics experiments. We identify major obstacles to experiment replication and introduce an integrated approach that allows (i) aggregation and discovery of required research artifacts, (ii) automated software build and deployment, as well as (iii) experiment description, repeatable execution and evaluation. We explain the usage of the introduced process along an exemplary robotics experiment and discuss our approach in the context of current ecosystems for robot programming and simulation.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Semantic Systems - I-SEMANTICS '12, 2012
Abstract Researchers and other knowledge workers frequently produce and use diverse research arte... more Abstract Researchers and other knowledge workers frequently produce and use diverse research artefacts such as papers, data sets, experiment specifications, software, etc. In this, they are often faced with unclear relationships (eg, which version of a software was in use for a particular paper), creating unnecessary work and potentially errors. Semantic web technologies can provide metadata as well as explicit, specific links between the artefacts. However, data acquisition and perceived utility are potential stumbling blocks for adoption ...
2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2013
ABSTRACT A key issue for interactive robots is smooth and natural motion. When robots are tele-op... more ABSTRACT A key issue for interactive robots is smooth and natural motion. When robots are tele-operated, e.g. for tele presence or during "Wizard of Oz" style studies, this requires an intuitive and responsive control interface. Furthermore, this interface should not interfere with perceiving the robot's sensors. In this work we will present a system that allows a human operator to control an anthropomorphic robotic head by wearing a combined motion capture and display helmet. It allows the direct and live transfer of human facial expressions, gaze and head movements to a humanoid robotic head, and at the same time displays the scene as perceived by the robot's vision sensors. Beside direct control, the system can also record human motion datasets for analysis or later playback. Furthermore, the presented system is cost-effective, and relies to a large extent on commercially available off-the-shelf products. The remaining parts and software are made freely available for research use.
Agenda Introduction The vision Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Collaborative Resea... more Agenda Introduction The vision Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) Collaborative Research Environment Collaborative development environment Continuous integration server and Open research/data server Pub service by Bielefeld University Library Cognitive Interaction Toolkit Platform + Live Demo Conclusion and Discussion 1 Julian is a researcher in the field of neurocognition and has developed a new method with corresponding software toolset that he has evaluated thoroughly. Julian likes the idea of Open Research and makes his software and his test data available. He marks the current state of both software and data and adds a description that links both research output artifacts to each other, the field of research and his institution and himself.
A robot's software ecosystem often comprises a set of heterogeneous software components, acquirin... more A robot's software ecosystem often comprises a set of heterogeneous software components, acquiring, exchanging, fusioning, and deriving data to trigger a desired behaviour, state, or action of the robot. Due to the nature of component based development [2], and component interaction respectively, an essential, and often crucial part of robotic system development is frequent integration testing. While unit tests already provide an established way of checking modelled constraints on single components, tests including complete component based (sub-)systems have not been widely studied in robotics so far. We have identified the following problem statements with respect to component based system testing so far.
Robot simulators, like the MORSE[1] project, provide a safe and readily available environment for... more Robot simulators, like the MORSE[1] project, provide a safe and readily available environment for robot system testing, reducing the effort for testing drastically. In principle, simulation testing is automatable, and thus a good target for Continuous Integration (CI)[2] testing. However, so far, high-level scenario tests still require complex component setup and configuration [4] before they can be run in the simulator. An added complication is, that there is no standard for starting, configuring, or monitoring software components on todays robots. Often, high-level tests are carried out manually, implementing a tailored solution, e.g, via shell scripts or launch files[5], for a specific system setup. Besides the effort of manual execution and supervision, current tests mostly do not take timing and orchestration, i.e., required process start-up sequence, into account. Furthermore, successful execution of components is not verified, which might lead to subsequent errors during the execution chain. Most importantly, all this knowledge about the test and its environment is implicit, often hidden in the actual implementation of the tailored test suite.