Roy El-Helou

Affiliations: MItHRIL, Ingenuity Labs Research Institute, Queen's University

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69 Union St

Kingston, Ontario K7L 2N9

I am a Masters student in robotics. My research focuses on robot motion generation and control for human-robot interaction.

I study how robots can be made to move in ways that feel expressive, engaging, and intuitive to the people around them, with the goal of making robotic behaviour more relatable and natural.

My work sits at the intersection of engineering and human psychology, exploring how people perceive and respond to robotic motion. Through my research, I aim to design robots that not only perform tasks efficiently but also fit smoothly into everyday life, interacting with humans in ways that feel natural and socially aware.

selected publications

  1. The Social Life of Industrial Arms: How Arousal and Attention Shape Human-Robot Interaction
    Roy El-Helou and Matthew KX Pan
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.01260, 2025
  2. The Turkish Ice Cream Robot: Examining Playful Deception in Social Human-Robot Interactions
    Hyeonseong Kim, Roy El-Helou, Seungbeen Lee, and 2 more authors
    arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.21776, 2025