Mobile robots increasingly operate alongside humans but are often out of sight, so that humans need to rely on the sounds of the robots to recognize their presence. For successful human-robot interaction (HRI), it is therefore crucial to understand how humans perceive robots by their consequential sounds, i.e., operating noise. Prior research suggests that the sound of a quadruped Go1 is more detectable than that of a wheeled Turtlebot. This study builds on this and examines the human ability to localize consequential sounds of three robots (quadruped Go1, wheeled Turtlebot 2i, wheeled HSR) in Virtual Reality. In a within-subjects design, we assessed participants' localization performance for the robots with and without an acoustic vehicle alerting system (AVAS) for two velocities (0.3, 0.8 m/s) and two trajectories (head-on, radial). In each trial, participants were presented with the sound of a moving robot for 3~s and were tasked to point at its final position (localization task). Localization errors were measured as the absolute angular difference between the participants' estimated and the actual robot position. Results showed that the robot type significantly influenced the localization accuracy and precision, with the sound of the wheeled HSR (especially without AVAS) performing worst under all experimental conditions. Surprisingly, participants rated the HSR sound as more positive, less annoying, and more trustworthy than the Turtlebot and Go1 sound. This reveals a tension between subjective evaluation and objective auditory localization performance. Our findings highlight consequential robot sounds as a critical factor for designing intuitive and effective HRI, with implications for human-centered robot design and social navigation.

翻译：移动机器人日益与人类协同工作，但常处于视野之外，因此人类需依赖机器人声音来感知其存在。为实现成功的人机交互（HRI），理解人类如何通过机器人的伴随声（即运行噪声）感知机器人至关重要。先前研究表明，四足机器人Go1的声音比轮式Turtlebot更易被察觉。本研究在此基础上，通过虚拟现实环境考察人类对三种机器人（四足Go1、轮式Turtlebot 2i、轮式HSR）伴随声的定位能力。采用被试内设计，我们评估了参与者在有无声学车辆警示系统（AVAS）条件下，对两种速度（0.3、0.8 m/s）和两种轨迹（迎面、径向）移动机器人的定位表现。每个试次中，参与者聆听3秒移动机器人声音后，需指向其最终位置（定位任务）。定位误差以参与者估计位置与实际位置间的绝对角度差度量。结果表明，机器人类型显著影响定位准确度与精确度，其中轮式HSR的声音（尤其在无AVAS时）在所有实验条件下表现最差。出乎意料的是，参与者对HSR声音的评价比Turtlebot和Go1更积极，认为其更不恼人且更可信。这揭示了主观评价与客观听觉定位性能之间的张力。我们的研究结果凸显了机器人伴随声作为设计直观有效HRI的关键因素，对人本化机器人设计与社会化导航具有重要启示。