Robotic user interfaces

Currently, we are experiencing the rise of a new interface paradigm: Robotic User Interfaces (RUI). We give a structured overview of current studies and implementations in the area of RUI and discuss their dis/advantages. In particular we classify the RUIs in terms of tool – toy scale, remote control – autonomy scale, reactive dialogue scale and anthropomorphism scale. Unfortunately, many of the robots currently celebrated in the media are not particular interesting for the area of RUI because they only resemble advanced remote controlled toys. Next we describe Muu and eMuu, two conversational robotic user interfaces developed at the Media Integration and Communications Group (MIC) of the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR). The research scope of Muu is dialogue coordination in mixed initiative situations with multiple participants and eMuu’s scope is the communication of emotions. We provide a short technical introduction to the robots and describe our research questions. Next we report on an upcoming experiment in which investigate user’s interaction with eMuu.

[1]  Hideki Kozima.  Infanoid: An Experimental Tool for Developmental Psycho-Robotics , 2000 .

[2]  Tomoko Koda,et al.  Agents with faces : a study on the effects of personification of software agents , 1996 .

[3]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The Cognitive Structure of Emotions , 1988 .

[4]  Bernd Kleinjohann,et al.  MEXI: Machine with Emotionally eXtended Intelligence , 2003, HIS.

[5]  C. Elliott.  The affective reasoner: a process model of emotions in a multi-agent system , 1992 .

[6]  Aaron Sloman,et al.  Architectural requirements for human-like agents both natural and artificial , 1998 .

[7]  Dolores Cañamero,et al.  Modeling motivations and emotions as a basis for intelligent behavior , 1997, AGENTS '97.

[8]  Yugo Takeuchi,et al.  Talking Eye: Autonomous creatures for augmented chatting , 2000, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[9]  Maarten van Dantzich,et al.  1. Lifelike Computer Characters: the Persona project at Microsoft Research , 1997 .

[10]  Alan Mair.  Lego , 1988 .

[11]  M. Golombek.  THE MARS PATHFINDER MISSION , 1997 .

[12]  Lee Roy Beach,et al.  The Psychology of Decision Making: People in Organizations , 1997 .

[13]  Patrick Doyle,et al.  When is a Communicative Agent a Good Idea , 1999 .

[14]  Tomoko Yonezawa,et al.  Context-aware sensor-doll as a music expression device , 2001, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[15]  W. S. Reilly,et al.  Believable Social and Emotional Agents. , 1996 .

[16]  Yoshihiro Fujita.  Personal Robot R100 , 2000 .

[17]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Robot in Society: Friend or Appliance? , 1999 .

[18]  P. Petta,et al.  Emotional Agents for User Entertainment : Discussing the Underlying Assumptions , 1999 .