This project was set to focus on developing a social robot for child interaction.The goal was to create a tabletop robot that, through nonverbal communication, was able to express the six basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise. It should do so whilst providing a safe, transparent, explainable and accountable interaction, complying with UNICEFs policy guidelines on AI for children. Haru, the social robot project led by Honda Research Institute of Japan, was used as the main source inspiration. To start of the project, a state of the art analysis was performed, where several fields of study and existing social robots were investigated. From here, three concepts were derived: Improved Haru, the Egg, and the Snowman. Trough evaluation, the Egg was deemed the best candidate for further development. After an iterative second design process, a final solution was reached. The report examines the final mechanical and electrical design as well as the software in use in more detail. The dimensions of the robot are 28 cm in height (in its closed state) and 20 cm in base diameter. The total cost of the robot is 918 €. Validation through questionnaires, a reliability test as well as a noise test were performed. The results indicate that colours and graphics help the user to perceive the emotions more accurately. Angry, sad and shy were the emotions with the highest correct-perception-rate whilst happy, surprised and disgust had the lowest. The robot’s reliability showed great potential as no component reached temperatures worthy of concern. However, one of the motors got a recurring failure. The maximum equivalent noise level was 46 dBA, measured at 1 meter away from the robot. It was deemed that the robot met most of the stipulated requirements. Some of the future work suggested are improved mechanics, design and motion control, minor changes in electronics, the implementation of FSM as well as the expansion of explainability and user interaction. ; QC 20230227
Development of an Emotionally Expressive Robot Platform
2023-01-01
Paper
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
DDC: | 629 |
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