The focus of this research is on designing and developing interfaces for human-robot interaction through which non-expert users can specify a task to a robot. Specifically, we are studying methods to better understand human-robot interaction through a collaborative robotic interface for humanoid domestic service robots, where the user can interact with the robot intuitively using multimodal cues of language, gestures and gaze. We are applying a user-centric approach by conducting user studies to model how a human uses speech, gestures, and gaze naturally to collaborate with a robot, and then using these models to design intuitive human-robot interaction interfaces.
This research is being funded by the Opus-LAP program of NCN, and we have collaborating partners at the Technical University, Vienna (TUW), and Czech Technical University, Prague (CTU).
We are currently investigating how the physical appearance of social robots influences the attribution of social roles by Polish and Danish children aged 5 to 7 in educational settings. We are exploring how robot morphology affects children's perceptions of robots as teachers, peers, or pets. Two robots, NAO (more humanoid) and Misty (more machine-like), were introduced in playful, semi-natural environments using an in-the-wild approach in Poland and a living lab setup in Denmark. A total of 68 children participated in storytelling and creative activities facilitated by the robots, followed by individual questionnaires and interviews. Preliminary research results revealed that NAO was significantly more likely to be perceived as a teacher, while Misty was more often seen as a friend or pet. No statistically significant differences were found between the two cultural groups or between genders, although qualitative data suggests subtle gendered patterns in emotional engagement and care behaviors. Children’s verbal expressions and physical interactions indicate strong emotional responses and anthropomorphization of both robots, with NAO’s upright posture and human-like features contributing to perceptions of authority, and Misty’s small size and expressive face fostering companionship. These findings highlight the importance of robot morphology in shaping children's role attributions and suggest that educational robot design should prioritize clear alignment between physical form and intended pedagogical role.
The focus of this research is to study how children interact with robots, and to develop guidelines for designing social robots for children. We follow in-the-wild methodology where we conduct in-situ workshops involving robots and children in naturalistic settings such as schools, day-care centers, or museums. The activities include book reading, dancing, creating an animation, and so on. We have conducted such workshops in Poland, Japan, Turkey, and Denmark. We are studying cultural aspects of child-robot interaction as well. We have studied the effect of emotional feedback on robot-assisted learning. We are collaborating with Hosei University to design a Robot-assisted Learning intervention system for detecting potentially risky behaviors during laboratory experiments.
Robots and the Elderly
One of the key areas of application for social robots is healthcare, particularly for the elderly. IN order to investigate how robots can improve and enrich quality of life for the elderly in Polish society, catering to their specific challenges and needs, a study involving the humanoid robot NAO
was conducted at the Municipal Care Center in Krakow, Poland, with the participation of 29 older adults. The participatory design study explored their attitudes toward robots and technology both before and after interacting with the robot. It also identified the most
desirable applications of social robots that could simplify everyday life for the elderly. We are also interested on how robots and other digital technologies can help alleviate the feelings of loneliness for older adults.
Robot Barista
Polish businesses show more interest in employing robots as customer service assistants and promotional tools, but the attitude of the Polish public remains largely unexplored. In order to bridge this research gap, we conducted a field study in two cafes with a teleoperated Nao robot, which sat next to the counter serving as an assistant to a human barista. Customer attitude was measured through semi-structured interviews and customer questionnaires, through which we discovered that Polish customers, in general, are neutral and insecure about robots. We hope to conduct more studies in the future, to investigate others aspects of robot perception and how they can be better leveraged by businesses in Poland.
Many humans communicate affection through physical touch, hug being one of the most frequent gestures. Traditional means of remote communication, such as letters, voice or even video, do not enable the full breadth of human connection due to their inherent limitations. Our lab, thus, is highly interested in innovative alternative communication modalities, that provide new human interaction possibilities. Our lab is currently exploring how to communicate affection and how to bring people together through remote hugging interfaces. We have investigated how such interface should look like through exploring and evaluating how the HugBits is used and perceived by Polish users, finding that a less anthropomorphic form factor is the generally the most desired. HugBits is a novel interface embedded with touch sensors that enables remote, non-verbal communication by simulating the sensation of hugging, created by our partners at the University of Tsukuba, in Japan.
Currently, we are investigating how to further advance the present capabilities provided by HugBits, developing a newer version with more modalities, such as vibration, e-flesh, among many other possibilities.
In the Social Robotics Lab, we are interested in all aspects of robotics withing society — art is not an exception. We have developed art projects such as:
"Verse in the Machine", an open-air AI poetry session with robots
Symbiosis: A robot and a human dancing together
"Maternal Protocol: A socio-artistic study of human-robot interaction in public spaces", a project investigating human responses in day-to-day environments to a humanoid robot, NAO, programmed to emulate childlike behaviors
"Quiet, the Baby is Sleeping" (original Polish title: Cicho, Dziecko Śpi) — art installation at the Open Eyes 2025 Art festival in Kraków (https://oeaf.pl/)
We are currently developing a plant cyborg (robot + potted plant) that teaches children how to take care of vegetables by informing them of the needs of the vegetables and how to meet them (e.g. watering, fertilization, pH correction, etc). This is achieved through our ROOTED framework, which constantly monitors the characteristics of the soil, chiefly moisture, EC, pH, and NPK contents, safely navigates the robot in social environments, and leverages a hybrid chabot that employs state of the art distilled language models, state machines and traditional Natural Language Processing techniques. The system also takes into account the age and emotional state of users, adjusting the language used as necessary.
The most important step of this research with respect to the original Social Plantroid robot is that we are currently investigating the preferences of pre-literate Polish children through a series of workshops, in order to develop a system that is liked by its end-users.
In order to deploy robots in unstructured environments such as homes, hospitals or shops robots must be able to cope with environment changes without the need for re-programming or re-learning their skills. The line of research of robot skill adaptation aims to find the right knowledge representations and algorithms that will enable robots to use their existing skills and knowledge and adapt them autonomously to previously unseen situations and settings.
