Realization and Evaluation of Realistic Nod with Receptionist robot SAYA

Android robots that have a human-like appearance have been developed recently. The purpose of android robots is to realize realistic communication between human and robot by implementation of human-like behaviors. Then knowledge and techniques for generating human-like natural motions and behaviors with android robot are required. In face-to-face communication, we can observe that the speaker nods during his utterance, and we call this behavior "Speaker's nod". Thus, in this study, we tried to realize realistic "Speaker's nod" as a natural interpersonal behavior with receptionist robot SAYA that has human-like appearance. Therefore we experimentally investigated expression-timing, angle and angular velocity of the human "Speaker's nod", and we implemented "Speaker's nod" to SAYA based on the investigation results. Then we have verified that "Speaker's nod" at appropriate timing affected the humanity of SAYA, and it greatly enhanced emotional impression of human by subjective experiment.