The open access book gives an overview of novel research findings in the field of humans interaction with embodied technologies. It provides a deep understanding of technologies, scientific methods, and studies on human's interaction with embodied technologies, such as digital agents, robots, cars, and machines. Autonomously acting EDTs and humans in real or virtual shared environments, and humans wearing EDTs or controlling artificial bodies, form hybrid societies. In hybrid societies, humans and agents with embodied technologies must coordinate efficiently and smoothly. To this aim, they must perceive and track each other's behavior, assess each other's capabilities, states, and situational intentions to make predictions, communicate implicitly and explicitly, and plan and control movements. The interactions begin at the individual encounter and human-machine interface level and extend to the level of entire sociotechnical systems involving joint activities of human and artificial agents.
Several upcoming embodied technologies that interact with humans in public environments are discussed, including highly automated and driverless vehicles mixed with human-driven vehicles and human road users, as well as urban robots. Innovative ways for recognizing, analyzing, and harmonizing both of the human capabilities and the technical functionalities of artificial agents are presented.
Bertolt Meyer:
Bertolt Meyer is a full professor for Work and Organizational Psychology at Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany and was the Speaker of the CRC 1410 "Hybrid Societies“ from 2022 - 2024. His research focuses on the impact of technology on social systems including the psychological effects of human body augmentation, the digital transformation of the workplace, and diversity. Meyer is an associate editor for Frontiers in Psychology: Organizational Psychology and at Small Group Research. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 from Humboldt University Berlin and worked as postdocoral researcher at the Institute of Psychology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, from 2008–2014. He was voted German Professor of the Year 2024 by the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband).
Ulrike Thomas:
Ulrike Thomas received her Diploma degree in Computer Science in 2000 and her Ph.D. in Robotics in 2008, both from the Institute of Robotics and Process Control at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. She worked at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at the Remote Sensing Institute (from 2007 to 2009) and the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics (from 2009 to 2015) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. Since 2015, she has been Professor and Head of the Robotics and Human-Machine Interaction Lab at Chemnitz University of Technology. Her research focuses on production and service robotics, the development of humanoid robots, human–robot interaction, automated assembly planning, machine learning, and computer vision for robotics. She is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and patents and has received several outstanding paper awards. From 2020 to 2022, she served as Vice Speaker and part of the core leadership team of the Collaborative Research Center 1410 “Hybrid Societies”.
Olfa Kanoun:
Olfa Kanoun graduated in electrical engineering and information technology from the Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, in 1996. She received in 2001 the Ph.D. from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, Munich. Since 2007, she has been a full professor in measurement and sensor technology with the Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany. Her research interests in on the design of sensor systems including embedded impedance spectroscopy, flexible sensors, and energy aware wireless sensors. She received in 2022 the IEEE IM Technical Award. Following standardized citation indicators, she has been classified among the world top 2% scientist since 2019.
