his project examines how robots can be introduced into large, crowded environments such as cultural events and public gatherings. It focuses on observing social and cultural dynamics around robots in the wild, with the goal of informing the design of robotic behavior and interaction strategies suited to real-world settings.

I serve as the principal investigator, leading the design, deployment, and study of robotic systems in public spaces. Our initial work focuses on first encounters with robots, including readiness cues, attention, and early interaction dynamics. We explore the use of large language models to support adaptive interaction use cases, enabling robots to respond to different event contexts and social situations. The project combines field deployment with empirical observation, and a paper based on this work has been submitted for publication.

Paper submitted:
Renad Allagani, Hadeel Aljami, Yahya Alsabban, Abdulrahman Alaql, and Jumana Almahmoud. 2025. Recognizing Robot Readiness: First Encounter Dynamics in Public Saudi Cultural Events. IEEE International Conference on Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) (under review).