Interactive Humanoid Robots for a Science Museum

One objective of the Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories is to develop an intelligent communication robot that supports people in an open everyday environment by interacting with them. A humanoid robot can help achieve this objective because its physical structure lets it interact through human-like body movements such as shaking hands, greeting, and pointing. Both adults and children are more likely to understand such interactions than interactions with an electronic interface such as a touch panel or buttons. To behave intelligently during an interaction, a robot requires many types of information about its environment and the people with whom it interacts. However, in open everyday environments, simple recognition functions such as identifying an individual are difficult because the presence and movement of a large number of people as well as unfavorable illumination and background conditions affect the robot's sensing ability. We integrated humanoid robots and ubiquitous sensors in an autonomous system to assist visitors at an Osaka Science Museum exhibit