Hooman Hedayati, a computer science PhD student based in the ATLAS Institute鈥檚 Interactive Robotics and Novel Technologies (IRON) Lab, participated in a prestigious summer internship at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington, where he worked on teaching robots social skills in group conversations. His research focused on helping robots detect F-formations, group conversations that happen when 鈥渢wo or more people sustain a spatial and orientational relationship in which the space between them is one to which they have equal, direct and exclusive access.鈥�
鈥淔or us, detecting F-formations is easy, and we don鈥檛 think about it,鈥� says Hedayati. 听鈥淵ou know how many are in your conversational group, and you know how to position yourself in respect to others. But this task is not easy for robots.鈥�
During the internship, Hooman and his Microsoft Research mentor, Sean Andrist, worked on developing an algorithm to help robots detect those in the same conversational group as the robot. The two plan to publish a paper about their findings.
鈥淚t was a great feeling to be surrounded by top scientists and legends in my field,鈥� Hedayati says.
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