An illustrative scenario
What should the robot do when a person changes the task?
A robot is moving a tote through a shared workspace when a person steps into the route and redirects it to another station. The task now requires fresh observations, a clear handoff of intent, and a permitted choice to wait, ask, or change the plan.
What to vary
Keep the comparison focused. Change the conditions that can alter the right next action.
- Human activity
- Crossing paths, interrupted handovers, late instructions, and ambiguous intent.
- Environment state
- Moved objects, unavailable stations, reduced clearance, and outdated observations.
- Task execution
- Failed grasps, uncertain object state, delayed tools, and recovery constraints.
What to measure
Agree the checks before the evaluation. Inspect outcomes and failures alongside the summary.
- Task completion
- Check the requested object, destination, and final state after interruptions.
- Interaction response
- Compare whether the system recognized the change, yielded, or requested clarification appropriately.
- Recovery evidence
- Record observation age, chosen skill, fallback behavior, and which scenarios require hardware validation.
Define your engagement
Start with a decision you can evaluate.
- You bring
- One site or task environment, an embodiment, observation/action interfaces, and the operating constraints defined by the robotics team.
- We scope
- A scenario suite for shared-space interaction, policy comparisons, failure traces, and a prioritized hardware validation plan.
Simulation does not establish safe physical deployment. Controller behavior, sensing limits, contact dynamics, and task-specific safety requirements need engineering review and evidence from the actual system.
Plan a scoped pilotQuestions about this use case
Is Helm the robot controller?
This scope concerns task environments, high-level decisions, and evaluation. Real-time control, stopping behavior, and hardware fallback remain separate engineering responsibilities unless explicitly included in an engagement.
What should a robotics team scope first?
Choose one embodiment, one environment, and one interaction family. Define what can be observed and checked before expanding to broader tasks or sites.