Robot Learning from Human Teachers

Sonia Chernova is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the director of the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab. She earned B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003 and 2009, and was a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Media Lab prior to joining WPI. Dr. Chernovas research is focused on interactive machine learning, adjustable autonomy, crowdsourcing, and human-robot interaction. She has received funding support from NSF, ONR, and DARPA, including an NSF CAREER award on Learning from Demonstration in 2012.Andrea L. Thomaz is an Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs the Socially Intelligent Machines lab, which is affiliated with the Robotics and Intelligent Machines (RIM) Center and with the Graphics Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center. She earned a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, and Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in 2002 and 2006. Dr. Thomaz has published in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Human-Robot Interaction. She has received recognition as a young leader in her field, receiving an ONR Young Investigator Award in 2008, and an NSF CAREER award in 2010. Her work has been featured on the front page of the New York Times, on NOVA Science Now, she was named one of MIT Technology Reviews Top 35 under 35 in 2009, and on Popular Science Magazines Brilliant 10 list in 2012.

• Introduction.- Human Social Learning.- Modes of Interaction with a Teacher.- Learning Low-Level Motion Trajectories.- Learning High-Level Tasks.- Refining a Learned Task.- Designing and Evaluating an LfD Study.- Future Challenges and Opportunities.- Bibliography.- Authors' Biographies.