The 2011 HRI Conference was held in Lausanne, Switzerland in March 2011. The theme of HRI 2011 was Real World HRI. This theme is intended to highlight HRI in which basic scientific research is further tested in real world settings or applied to questions that arise in real world settings. One central aspect of this type of research, in contrast to other realms of applied research, is that it is theoretically driven and feeds back to our theoretical understandings. As such, real world research fortifies our understanding of people, robots, and interaction between the two. Thirty-three out of 149 submissions were included in the conference program. More information can be found on the conference website.
Lausanne, Switzerland photo credit (used under a Creative Commons License).