Biography

Aurélie CLODIC
aurelie.clodic@laas.fr ; +33 (0) 5 61 33 79 11
LAAS-CNRS, 7 avenue du colonel Roche, BP54200, 31031 Toulouse Cedex 4, France

I am a research engineer at LAAS-CNRS (Toulouse, France) since 2012 with a permanent position from 06/2014. I received my PhD in robotics in 2007 for which I elaborateddesigned and implemented components for human-robot joint activity in several contexts (e.g.: robot guide in a museum, robotic assistant in the framework of the COGNIRON project). In 2018, I obtained an additional bachelor’s degree bachelor in psychology. In 2022, I get my Habilitation à Diriger des Rercherches (HDR). My research interests include human-robot collaborative task achievement as well as robotics architecture design (focused on high-level decision-making and execution monitoring) dedicated to Human Robot Interaction.

After my thesis, I spent 4 years in an IT services company: ATOS. I first worked as an embedded software engineer for the ATC project (Air Traffic Control on behalf of Airbus. In this context, I intervened at all levels of the V cycle in an avionics context (standard DO178-B )). I then joined the model engineering team. I worked there as a consultant on the one hand, on projects related to requirements engineering and software product lines in the automotive context (Continental). I was also a project manager for various major accounts (CNES, Astrium, Airbus).

At the end of 2012, I returned to LAAS and started working for the FP7 project SAPHARI Safe and Autonomous Physical Human-Aware Robot Interaction (http://www.saphari.eu/) as well as for the ANT MarDi Man-Robot Dialogue project (anr.fr/Project-ANR-12-CORD-0021) mainly on supervision and situation assessment. Then, I was involved in the ANR RoboErgoSum project (http://roboergosum.isir.upmc.fr/}, https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-12-CORD-0030). I worked on a proof of concept to mix the traditional task planning approach with learning. The idea was, since it is impossible for reinforcement learning algorithms to learn from scratch in a human-robot collaboration context, to use a "traditional" planner (in our case HATP, Human-Aware Task Planner) as a primer for reinforcement learning algorithms. I also worked on a way to manage the interaction in a fluid way in a context of joint action.

I then worked on the MuMMER project (H2020-688147 http://mummer-project.eu/) on the design and development of an entertainment robot in a shopping mall in Finland. We mainly worked on a route description task allowing customers to interact with the robot to be guided into the mall. I participated in the supervision of two theses within this project. Guillaume Sarthou (Knowledge representation and exploitation for interactive and cognitive robots) and Amandine Mayima (Endowing the Robot with the Abilities to Control and Evaluate its Contribution to a Human-Robot Joint Action), both in co-supervision with Rachid Alami.

I initiated and participated in the ANR JointAction4HRI project (https://jointaction4hri.laas.fr/) where with developmental psychologists and philosophers we worked on designing an architecture for joint human-robot action. This resulted in a thesis in psychology, defended in December 2021, in co-supervision between the Robotics and InteractionS team and the CLLE Cognition, Languages, Language and Ergonomics laboratory of the Jean Jaurès University in Toulouse, Kathleen Belhassein Proposed strategies communicative for an efficient, fluid and sustainable Human-Robot joint action.

I also organized a series of workshops "Toward a framework for Joint Action" (fja.sciencesconf.org). Indeed, it is interesting to observe, from the perspective of a roboticist, that human-human joint action is a subject of intense research in cognitive psychology and philosophy. This observation led us to set up a multidisciplinary initiative to create a unique opportunity for scientific exchanges through a series of workshops entitled "towards a Framework for Joint Action" (fja.sciencesconf.org). Psychologists and philosophers can present recent developments in joint action research, while roboticists can discuss the challenges they face regarding human-robot interaction and more specifically joint human-robot activity.

I am currently coordinator and scientific manager of the Franco-German-Japanese ANR project ai4hri artificial intelligence for human-robot interaction. I am scientific manager for the LAAS for the ANR projects ELSA Effective Learning of Social Affordances and ANR ASTRID IA DISCUSS Structured, Consolidated and Unified Interactive Dialogue for the realization of Tasks in Robotics.

I am also involved in the ANR JCJC EPIIC ElectroPhysiological Involuntary Inputs for Collaborative robotics enhancement project.

Workshop
Main organizer of the « toward a framework for Joint Action » workshop series fja.sciencesconf.org where roboticists, philosophers and psychologists meet and talk together (7 workshops organized within conferences (Robotics Science and Systems (RSS18), Joint Action Meeting (JAM17), Robo-Philosophy (’16), RO-MAN (’14 and ’16), International Conference on Social Robotics (’15), Human-Robot Interaction (’15) and 2 special sessions (hrja.sciencesconf.org, hrja2018.sciencesconf.org))

Talk
Invited Keynote at Artificial Intelligence and Human-Robot Interaction AAAI Fall Symposium 2015
Invited Speaker at Trust in Robots Lecture Series, Vienna, 21 December 2018
Invited Speaker at HUMAINT Winter school on AI and its ethical, legal, social and economic (ELSE) impact, 4-8 February 2019
Invited Speaker Workshop on Robotics, AI, and Humanity: Science, Ethics, and Policy” organized jointly by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS), Casina Pio IV, Vatican City, 16-17 May 2019
Invited Speaker Workshop MIT AeroAstro Virtual Workshop - "Humans Interacting with Autonomy", 13 January 2021

Lecture
« introduction to HRI », ISAE Supaéro - Toulouse (since 2016)
« introduction to HRI », Human-Machine Interface (IHM) Master, Toulouse (since 2017)

Education

Bachelor in Psychology (spec. social psychology) — Paris 8 University - 2018
PhD in Robotics - Toulouse university - 2007
Master Image Processing, Vision, Robotics - National Polytechnical Institute Grenoble - 2002

Current position
Research Engineer in robotics (spec. Human-robot interaction) — LAAS-CNRS, Toulouse (FRANCE) — 2012-PRESENT

Experience

• Project Manager  — AtoS, Toulouse (France) - 2011-2012
  • Multi-projects team management. Projects supervision and follow-up . Elaboration of proposals. Handling customer/supplier relationship. Carried out reporting to the executive committee. Responsible for contract, planning, invoicing, delivery, risks and costs.
  • Requirement Engineering in automotive (Continental) and spatial (CNES) domain
• Embedded software engineer - ATOS, Toulouse (FRance) — 2008-2011
  • Air Traffic Control (ATC) project, A350, A380, A400M Airbus programs
  • Work in accordance with DO-178B, Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification (Level C) in all parts of the V-model
• PhD Student — LAAS-CNRS, TOULOUSE (FRANCE) - 2002-2008
  • Supervision for interactive robots: Action and Interaction for autonomous robot in human environments
  • Supervisors: Rachid Alami, Raja Chatila, LAAS CNRS, Toulouse (France)
  • Abstract: Human-Robot collaborative task achievement requires specific task supervision and execution. In order to close the loop with their human partners robots must maintain an interaction stream in order to communicate their own intentions and beliefs and to monitor the activity of their human partner. In this work we introduce SHARY, a supervisor dedicated to collaborative task achievement in the human-robot interaction context. The system deals on the one hand with task refinement and on the other hand with communications needed in the human-robot interaction context. To this end, each task is defined at a communication level and at an execution level. This system has been developed on the robot Rackham for a tour- guide demonstration and has then been used on the robot Jido for a task of “fetch and carry”.