Article

Robot Navigation and Canine Welfare: A Pilot Study Surfacing Challenges for Cross-Species Legibility and Proxy Validity

A pilot study in a real home environment evaluated a "curve-out" navigation maneuver for canine welfare: a lateral arcing pass-by trajectory triggered at the dog's alert distance. Contrary to the hypothesis, the maneuver elicited a stronger stress response than a straight-line baseline. The authors argue that the maneuver's discontinuous execution, with the robot stopping and reorienting multiple times to approximate the arc, undermined behavioral legibility, which itself became a stressor. The study thus raises the legibility of robot behavior to non-humans and proxy stimulus validity as structural challenges for animal-machine interaction (AMI).

Part of the event: Curved Detour Navigation Pilot: Dog Stress Increases Instead

This page provides a summary and source link only.