Abstract
With the rising tendency to deploy autonomous robots, their navigational decisions will strongly influence humans. Robot navigation should be explainable to mitigate the undesirable effects of navigation faults and unexpectedness on people. To contribute to compliance between humans and autonomous robots, we present HiXRoN (Hierarchical eXplainable Robot Navigation)—a comprehensive hierarchical framework for explaining robot navigational choices. Besides providing explanations of robot navigation, our framework encompasses qualitative, quantitative, and temporal strategies for explanation conveyance. We further discuss its possibilities and limitations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Adadi, A., Berrada, M.: Peeking inside the black-box: a survey on explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). IEEE Access 6, 52138–52160 (2018)
Alvanpour, A., Das, S.K., Robinson, C.K., Nasraoui, O., Popa, D.: Robot failure mode prediction with explainable machine learning. In: 2020 IEEE 16th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pp. 61–66. IEEE (2020)
Ambsdorf, J., et al.: Explain yourself! Effects of explanations in human-robot interaction. arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.04501 (2022)
Andrist, S., Mutlu, B., Tapus, A.: Look like me: matching robot personality via gaze to increase motivation. In: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3603–3612 (2015)
Anjomshoae, S., Najjar, A., Calvaresi, D., Främling, K.: Explainable agents and robots: results from a systematic literature review. In: 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2019), Montreal, Canada, 13–17 May 2019, pp. 1078–1088. International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (2019)
Bairy, A., Hagemann, W., Rakow, A., Schwammberger, M.: Towards formal concepts for explanation timing and justifications. In: 2022 IEEE 30th International Requirements Engineering Conference Workshops (REW), pp. 98–102. IEEE (2022)
Bautista-Montesano, R., Bustamante-Bello, R., Ramirez-Mendoza, R.A.: Explainable navigation system using fuzzy reinforcement learning. Int. J. Interact. Des. Manuf. (IJIDeM) 14(4), 1411–1428 (2020)
Bohus, D., Saw, C.W., Horvitz, E.: Directions robot: in-the-wild experiences and lessons learned. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-agent Systems, pp. 637–644 (2014)
Brandao, M., Canal, G., Krivić, S., Magazzeni, D.: Towards providing explanations for robot motion planning. In: 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 3927–3933. IEEE (2021)
Brandao, M., Coles, A., Magazzeni, D.: Explaining path plan optimality: fast explanation methods for navigation meshes using full and incremental inverse optimization. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, vol. 31, pp. 56–64 (2021)
Breazeal, C.: Socially intelligent robots. Interactions 12(2), 19–22 (2005)
Breazeal, C., Dautenhahn, K., Kanda, T.: Social Robotics. Springer Handbook Of Robotics, pp. 1935–1972. Springer, Heidelberg (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30301-5
Cashmore, M., Collins, A., Krarup, B., Krivic, S., Magazzeni, D., Smith, D.: Towards explainable AI planning as a service. arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.05059 (2019)
Das, D., Banerjee, S., Chernova, S.: Explainable AI for system failures: generating explanations that improve human assistance in fault recovery. arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.09407 (2020)
De Graaf, M.M., Malle, B.F.: How people explain action (and autonomous intelligent systems should too). In: 2017 AAAI Fall Symposium Series (2017)
Du, N., et al.: Look who’s talking now: implications of AV’s explanations on driver’s trust, AV preference, anxiety and mental workload. Transp. Res. C Emerg. Technol. 104, 428–442 (2019)
Edmonds, M., et al.: A tale of two explanations: enhancing human trust by explaining robot behavior. Sci. Robot. 4(37), eaay4663 (2019)
El-Assady, M., et al.: Towards XAI: structuring the processes of explanations. In: Proceedings of the ACM Workshop on Human-Centered Machine Learning, Glasgow, UK, vol. 4 (2019)
Felzmann, H., Fosch-Villaronga, E., Lutz, C., Tamo-Larrieux, A.: Robots and transparency: the multiple dimensions of transparency in the context of robot technologies. IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag. 26(2), 71–78 (2019)
Fox, M., Long, D., Magazzeni, D.: Explainable planning. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.10256 (2017)
Freeberg, T.M., Dunbar, R.I., Ord, T.J.: Social complexity as a proximate and ultimate factor in communicative complexity. Philos. Trans. Royal Soc. B Biol. Sci. 367(1597), 1785–1801 (2012)
Garcia, F.J.C., Robb, D.A., Liu, X., Laskov, A., Patron, P., Hastie, H.: Explainable autonomy: a study of explanation styles for building clear mental models. In: 11th International Conference of Natural Language Generation 2018, pp. 99–108. Association for Computational Linguistics (2018)
Gavriilidis, K., Munafo, A., Pang, W., Hastie, H.: A surrogate model framework for explainable autonomous behaviour. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.19724 (2023)
de Graaf, M.M., Malle, B.F., Dragan, A., Ziemke, T.: Explainable robotic systems. In: Companion of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 387–388 (2018)
Gunning, D.: Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). Defense Adv. Res. Projects Agency (DARPA) Web 2(2), 1 (2017)
Halilovic, A., Lindner, F.: Explaining local path plans using lime. In: Müller, A., Brandstötter, M. (eds.) Advances in Service and Industrial Robotics: RAAD 2022, vol. 120, pp. 106–113. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04870-8_13
Halilovic, A., Lindner, F.: Visuo-textual explanations of a robot’s navigational choices. In: Companion of the 2023 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 531–535 (2023)
Hauser, K.: The minimum constraint removal problem with three robotics applications. Int. J. Robot. Res. 33(1), 5–17 (2014)
He, L., Aouf, N., Song, B.: Explainable deep reinforcement learning for UAV autonomous path planning. Aerosp. Sci. Technol. 118, 107052 (2021)
Hoffman, R.R., Mueller, S.T., Klein, G., Litman, J.: Metrics for explainable AI: Challenges and prospects. arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.04608 (2018)
Huang, C.M., Andrist, S., Sauppé, A., Mutlu, B.: Using gaze patterns to predict task intent in collaboration. Front. Psychol. 6, 1049 (2015)
Karalus, J., Halilovic, A., Lindner, F.: Explanations in, explanations out: human-in-the-loop social navigation learning. In: ICDL Workshop on Human aligned Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Agents and Robots (2021)
Kim, T., Hinds, P.: Who should i blame? Effects of autonomy and transparency on attributions in human-robot interaction. In: ROMAN 2006-The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, pp. 80–85. IEEE (2006)
Körber, M., Prasch, L., Bengler, K.: Why do i have to drive now? Post hoc explanations of takeover requests. Hum. Factors 60(3), 305–323 (2018)
Kottinger, J., Almagor, S., Lahijanian, M.: Maps-X: explainable multi-robot motion planning via segmentation. In: 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 7994–8000. IEEE (2021)
Kottinger, J., Almagor, S., Lahijanian, M.: Conflict-based search for explainable multi-agent path finding. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, vol. 32, pp. 692–700 (2022)
Krarup, B., Krivic, S., Magazzeni, D., Long, D., Cashmore, M., Smith, D.E.: Contrastive explanations of plans through model restrictions. J. Artif. Intell. Res. 72, 533–612 (2021)
Kulesza, T., Stumpf, S., Burnett, M., Yang, S., Kwan, I., Wong, W.K.: Too much, too little, or just right? Ways explanations impact end users’ mental models. In: 2013 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human Centric Computing, pp. 3–10. IEEE (2013)
Kwon, M., Huang, S.H., Dragan, A.D.: Expressing robot incapability. In: Proceedings of the 2018 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 87–95 (2018)
Langley, P., Meadows, B., Sridharan, M., Choi, D.: Explainable agency for intelligent autonomous systems. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, AAAI 2017, pp. 4762–4763. AAAI Press (2017)
Leichtmann, B., Humer, C., Hinterreiter, A., Streit, M., Mara, M.: Effects of explainable artificial intelligence on trust and human behavior in a high-risk decision task. Comput. Hum. Behav. 139, 107539 (2023)
Lindner, F.: Towards a formalization of explanations for robots’ actions and beliefs. In: JOWO 2020 Proceedings of the FOIS Workshop Ontologies for Autonomous Robotics (ROBONTICS 2020) (2020)
Lomas, M., Chevalier, R., Cross, E.V., Garrett, R.C., Hoare, J., Kopack, M.: Explaining robot actions. In: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 187–188 (2012)
Lundberg, S.M., Lee, S.I.: A unified approach to interpreting model predictions. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 30 (2017)
Malle, B.F.: How people explain behavior: a new theoretical framework. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 3(1), 23–48 (1999)
Molnar, C.: Interpretable machine learning. Lulu. com (2020)
Parenti, L., Lukomski, A.W., De Tommaso, D., Belkaid, M., Wykowska, A.: Human-likeness of feedback gestures affects decision processes and subjective trust. Int. J. Soc. Robot. 15, 1–9 (2022)
Perera, V., Selveraj, S.P., Rosenthal, S., Veloso, M.: Dynamic generation and refinement of robot verbalization. In: 2016 25th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), pp. 212–218 (2016)
Puiutta, E., Veith, E.M.S.P.: Explainable reinforcement learning: a survey. In: Holzinger, A., Kieseberg, P., Tjoa, A.M., Weippl, E. (eds.) CD-MAKE 2020. LNCS, vol. 12279, pp. 77–95. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57321-8_5
Remman, S.B., Lekkas, A.M.: Robotic lever manipulation using hindsight experience replay and shapley additive explanations. In: 2021 European Control Conference (ECC), pp. 586–593. IEEE (2021)
Ribeiro, M.T., Singh, S., Guestrin, C.: “Why should I trust you?”: explaining the predictions of any classifier. In: Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, San Francisco, CA, USA, 13–17 August 2016, pp. 1135–1144 (2016)
Ribeiro, M.T., Singh, S., Guestrin, C.: Anchors: high-precision model-agnostic explanations. In: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) (2018)
Robb, D.A., Liu, X., Hastie, H.: Explanation styles for trustworthy autonomous systems. In: Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 2298–2300 (2023)
Rosenthal, S., Selvaraj, S.P., Veloso, M.M.: Verbalization: narration of autonomous robot experience. In: IJCAI, vol. 16, pp. 862–868 (2016)
Sakai, T., Nagai, T.: Explainable autonomous robots: a survey and perspective. Adv. Robot. 36(5–6), 219–238 (2022)
Setchi, R., Dehkordi, M.B., Khan, J.S.: Explainable robotics in human-robot interactions. Procedia Comput. Sci. 176, 3057–3066 (2020)
Shahriari, K., Shahriari, M.: IEEE standard review-ethically aligned design: a vision for prioritizing human wellbeing with artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. In: 2017 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference (IHTC), pp. 197–201. IEEE (2017)
Sidner, C.L., Lee, C., Kidd, C.D., Lesh, N., Rich, C.: Explorations in engagement for humans and robots. Artif. Intell. 166(1–2), 140–164 (2005)
Sieusahai, A., Guzdial, M.: Explaining deep reinforcement learning agents in the Atari domain through a surrogate model. In: Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, AIIDE 2021 (2021)
Song, S., Yamada, S.: Effect of expressive lights on human perception and interpretation of functional robot. In: Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–6 (2018)
Stein, G.: Generating high-quality explanations for navigation in partially-revealed environments. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 34 (2021)
Szymanski, M., Millecamp, M., Verbert, K.: Visual, textual or hybrid: the effect of user expertise on different explanations. In: 26th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, pp. 109–119 (2021)
Thielstrom, R., Roque, A., Chita-Tegmark, M., Scheutz, M.: Generating explanations of action failures in a cognitive robotic architecture. In: 2nd Workshop on Interactive Natural Language Technology for Explainable Artificial Intelligence, pp. 67–72 (2020)
Tolmeijer, S., et al.: Taxonomy of trust-relevant failures and mitigation strategies. In: Proceedings of HRI 2020 (2020)
Toohey, K., Duckham, M.: Trajectory similarity measures. SIGSPATIAL Spec. 7(1), 43–50 (2015)
Van Camp, W.: Explaining understanding (or understanding explanation). Eur. J. Philos. Sci. 4, 95–114 (2014)
Voigt, P., Von dem Bussche, A.: The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A Practical Guide, 1st edn. Springer, Cham (2017). 10(3152676), 10–5555
Wachter, S., Mittelstadt, B., Floridi, L.: Transparent, explainable, and accountable AI for robotics. Sci. Robot. 2(6), eaan6080 (2017)
Wang, D., Yang, Q., Abdul, A., Lim, B.Y.: Designing theory-driven user-centric explainable AI. In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–15 (2019)
Williams, T., Briggs, P., Scheutz, M.: Covert robot-robot communication: human perceptions and implications for human-robot interaction. J. Hum.-Robot Interact. 4(2), 24–49 (2015)
Wilson, J.R., Aung, P.T., Boucher, I.: When to help? A multimodal architecture for recognizing when a user needs help from a social robot. In: Cavallo, F., et al. (eds.) ICSR 2022. LNCS, vol. 13817, pp. 253–266. Springer, Cham (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24667-8_23
Winfield, A.F., et al.: IEEE P7001: a proposed standard on transparency. Front. Robot. AI 8, 665729 (2021)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Halilovic, A., Krivic, S. (2024). Towards a Holistic Framework for Explainable Robot Navigation. In: Piazza, C., Capsi-Morales, P., Figueredo, L., Keppler, M., Schütze, H. (eds) Human-Friendly Robotics 2023. HFR 2023. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55000-3_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55000-3_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-54999-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-55000-3
eBook Packages: Intelligent Technologies and RoboticsIntelligent Technologies and Robotics (R0)