Understanding human-robot proxemic norms in construction: How do humans navigate around robots?

Abstract

As an increasing number of mobile robots are envisioned to work and interact with humans in construction workspaces, it becomes critical that robots’ spatial behaviors align with the expectations of human coworkers to ensure safe and efficient co-navigation. Yet, we have a limited understanding of what robotic spatial behaviors are perceived as socially normative under different work contexts. This paper investigated perceived appropriate proxemic behaviors of robots by examining actual construction practitioners’ spatial behaviors during interactions with robots. We developed a virtual environment of a typical indoor construction job site and explored the role of work conditions and human-robot relations on their proxemic behaviors. The findings reveal that participants tend to maintain a larger separation distance in more crowded work conditions compared to normal ones and when encountering a robot as a passerby compared to encountering a human. We further discuss the implications of our results for the development of robot path planning with appropriate distancing strategies.