The fields of immersive technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR), and robotics are rapidly advancing with a focus on improving user experience, interaction, and collaboration. Recent studies have explored the effects of VR on perceived body size and the potential for VR-induced depth compression to alter body-environment relationships. Other research has investigated the use of multimodal feedback, including haptic and visual cues, to enhance task guidance and spatial precision in AR environments.
Notable papers include Unwinding Rotations Reduces VR Sickness in Nonsimulated Immersive Telepresence, which found that unwinding rotations can increase user comfort and reduce VR sickness, and MIRAGE: Patient-Specific Mixed Reality Coaching for MRI via Depth-Only Markerless Registration and Immersive VR, which demonstrated the potential for mixed reality coaching to reduce patient anxiety and improve MRI outcomes.
In the field of robotics, researchers are developing more advanced and versatile robotic systems, with a focus on improving design, control, and interaction with the environment. The use of novel materials, mechanisms, and control strategies is enhancing robotic capabilities, such as compliant and adaptive robots, humanoid robots, and soft robotic actuators. Noteworthy papers include Developing a Mono-Actuated Compliant GeoGami Robot, which presents a new soft-rigid robotic platform, and Towards Versatile Humanoid Table Tennis, which proposes a reinforcement learning framework for humanoid table tennis.
The field of human-robot interaction and motion generation is rapidly evolving, with a focus on developing more sophisticated and context-aware systems. Researchers are integrating multiple modalities, such as vision, language, and spatial information, to enable robots to better understand and respond to human behavior. Notable advancements include the development of novel ontologies and knowledge graphs to represent tasks, environments, and robot capabilities, as well as innovative approaches to motion generation, such as diffusion-based models and Laban movement analysis.
Some particularly noteworthy papers in this area include MINT-RVAE, which proposes a novel RGB-only pipeline for predicting human interaction intent with high accuracy, and SIG-Chat, which presents a full-stack solution for spatial intent-guided conversational gesture generation, enabling more context-aware and interactive robot behavior.
The field of robotics is also witnessing significant advancements in legged robotics and manipulation, with a focus on developing more agile, adaptive, and robust systems. Researchers are exploring the use of learning-based approaches, such as reinforcement learning and imitation learning, to improve the control and manipulation capabilities of legged robots. Noteworthy papers include Autonomous UAV-Quadruped Docking in Complex Terrains via Active Posture Alignment and Constraint-Aware Control, which proposes a framework for autonomous docking between UAVs and quadruped robots in complex environments, and Learning-Based Collaborative Control for Bi-Manual Tactile-Reactive Grasping, which presents a learning-based approach for collaborative grasping and manipulation using tactile feedback.
Overall, the fields of immersive technologies and robotics are rapidly advancing, with a focus on improving interaction, collaboration, and user experience. These advancements have the potential to significantly improve various applications, such as healthcare, education, and manufacturing, and enable more effective and natural human-robot interaction.
