伸縮機構と全周囲映像を用いた身長可変型テレプレゼンスロボットの提案

抄録

Height is an important factor in determining people's impressions of others during face-to-face communication. For example, a tall person might intimidate others, whereas a short person might seem less confident. Unfortunately, as individuals cannot easily alter their height, miscommunications sometimes result from initial impressions. Therefore, this study presents a novel telepresence robot called ScalableBody that has a mechanism for dynamically modifying its height. The robot can change users' experiences by allowing them to assume a taller or shorter perspective than they would have naturally. Furthermore, the height can be fixed to place users at the same height as the person with whom they are speaking, enabling eye contact when employing the robot for remote communication. This paper describes ScalableBody and its height-changing mechanism, a user study testing the robot, as well as the design implications.