Robot Navigation and Canine Welfare: A Pilot Study Surfacing Challenges for Cross-Species Legibility and Proxy Validity in Animal-Machine Interaction
Robot Navigation and Canine Welfare: A Pilot Study Surfacing Challenges for Cross-Species Legibility and Proxy Validity in Animal-Machine Interaction
This paper presents a pilot study evaluating a curve-out maneuver designed to improve animal welfare during robot navigation. Contrary to expectations, the maneuver caused higher stress responses in companion dogs compared to straight-line trajectories. The authors attribute this to discontinuous execution that reduced behavioral legibility, highlighting structural challenges for cross-species interaction design.
The study reports a pilot evaluation of a curve-out navigation maneuver for delivery robots in home environments, finding it elicited higher stress responses than straight-line baselines due to discontinuous execution that reduced behavioral legibility.
Source: arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · Read original article ↗
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arXiv:2610.40921v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autonomous delivery robots increasingly share residential spaces with companion animals, yet navigation behavior is rarely designed with animal welfare in mind. This paper presents a pilot study evaluating a curve-out maneuver, a laterally arcing pass-by trajectory triggered at the dog's alert distance, proposed as a candidate welfare-informed navigation intervention
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grounded in canine social communication research and legible motion theory. Following a research through design approach, we developed and evaluated a first design iteration of the artifact in a naturalistic home environment with a companion dog. Contrary to our hypothesis, the curve-out produced a more acute stress response than the straight-line baseline. We argue that discontinuous execution limitation, the robot
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Source：arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · arxiv.org