An evaluation on Interaction between humans and an autonomous robot Robovie

Abstract

This paper reports an evaluation about autonomous behaviors of an interaction-oriented robot, which will work in our daily life as our partner. To develop and improve such an interaction-oriented robot, it is necessary to find out the evaluation method of the human-robot interaction. We tried to evaluate the robot named“Robovie”, which has a human-like upper torso, a sufficient physical expressing ability, and abundant sensors for communicating with humans. Robovie autonomously exhibits playing behaviors such as a handshake, hug, and short conversation, based on visual, auditory, and tactile information. For the evaluation, we installed three behavior patterns“passive”, “active”, and“complex”into Robovie. As the result, “passive”pattern brought the best impression. We also analyze the dynamic aspects of the interactions with a concept of“entrain level”, then we suggest interaction-chain model for human-robot communication.