Evaluation of a Robot Programming Framework for Non- Experts Using Symbolic Planning Representations

International audienceCobots (collaborative robots) are revolutionising industries by allowing robots to work in close collaboration with humans. But many companies hesitate their adoption, due to the lack of programming experts. In this work, we evaluate a robot programming framework for non-expert users, that requires users to teach action models expressed in a symbolic planning language (PDDL). These action models would allow the robot to leverage modern automated planners to achieve any user-defined goal.We conducted qualitative user experiments with a Baxter robot to evaluate the non-expert user's understanding of the symbolic planning language and the usability of the framework. We showed that users with little to no programming experience can adopt the symbolic planning language, and use the framework