An evaluation on Interaction between humans and an autonomous robot Robovie

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.