Androids Therapy

Course SHS
Program in Cognitive Psychology

Spring 2007
Human-Robot Interaction
User-centred design of social robots
Aude G Billard
Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory - LASA

EPFL, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Lausanne, Switzerland
aude.billard@epfl.ch
A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

The Aesthetic of the Body
Why is Aesthetic important?

It is a truism that people will be more inclined to interact

with “attractive” faces than with “unattractive” ones.
Typical appealing features are large eyes, symmetric and

round faces, pink cheeks and big eyelashes.
Dolls’ faces versus Monster’s faces?
C. DiSalvo, F. Gemperle, J. Forlizzi, A.G.

and S. Kiesler.
Billard, All robotsRobots
Autonomous are not created
Class equal:
Spring 2007The design http://lasa.epfl.ch
and perception of
19th-20th Century: Automata

(Automated toys)
• Mimicking the body and

behavior of an animals
• Only one single behavior
• Completely preprogrammed
in the mechanics
• The aesthetic was very
important – pieces of art

Mini-Humanoids
PINO HOAP-1 SDR-3X, Sony Dream Robot

Kitano ERATO Project, Tokyo Fujitsu Laboratory Ltd. 50cm, 5 Kg, 24 DOFs
Sound and Vision 48 cm, 6 kg, 20 DOF, OS: Aperios, OPEN-R,
OS: RT-Linux 16MB memory stick
USB 1.0 (12Mbps) CCD Color Camera, Microphone (x2),
IR distance, Acceleration,
Touch Detection (x8), Speaker
Walking Speed, 15m per minute
Baby Robots
Image of My
Real Baby
My Real Baby (2000) Robota (1997-2002)

IRobot Corp, Boston, USA Univ. of Edinburgh 1997-1998,
EPFL (Switzerland) 1998-1999
DIDEL SA (Switzerland) 1999-2007
CSI, Paris, France 2000-2002
USC, Los Angeles,2001-2002
"uncanny valley"[Mori 1970]

The Aesthetic of the Face
Maverick, 2001 Berthoc, 2006

RIKEN & USC Univ. Bielefeld
Surprisingly, however, many of the humanoid robots

developed so far have more in common with monsters
than with dolls.
University of Pisa & Kobayashi / Ishiguro’s Lab

Jet Propulsion Lab Science University of Tokyo,
2001
Another set of attempts

Human-like body
• Binocular Vision
• Anthropomorphic Head
Kawato Erato Project, YFX Studios,
ATR, Kyoto, Japan Japan, USA
• Anthropomorphic Hands
• Anthropomorphic Arms
BiPed Locomotion
University of Karslruhe,
BIP 2000, CRNS, France A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
Germany
Repliee R1: Ishiguro’s lab, Osaka Univ.

This android has 9 degree of freedom in her head.
She can move her eyes, eyelids, mouth, and neck.
Its body is covered with silicone, so the skin feels humanlike.

And it has 4 high sensitivity skin sensors under the skin.

Repliee R2: Ishiguro’s lab, Osaka Univ.
Facial expressions of the adult

android: 13 of the 42 actuators are
used in the head. Humanlike facial
expressions are realized by the
motion of the eyes and mouth.
Together with the company Kokoro, Ishiguro’s lab

at Osaka Univ has developed a new life-like
android called Actroid DER2. This android looks
very human and talks and moves its head, arms,
hands, and body. This android is available for rental
now at the rate of $3,500 for 5 days.
Geminoid , Ishiguro’s Lab, Osaka University

Hiroshi Ishiguro would say that his Geminoid is like a twin!
And,A.G.finally, he cloned
Billard, Autonomous himself!
Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
The realism of the facial expressions

are as important as the overall
aesthetic of the face

Designing Robot’s Faces
Expressing Emotions
Sad Happy Surprised
The Kismet Robot, C. Breazael, MIT, 1999

Expressing Emotions
From left to right and top

to bottom: neutral, anger, sadness, fear, happiness, and surprise.
Feelix robot by L. Canamero, MIT, 1999

L. Canamero, J Fredslund, I show you
A.G.how I likeAutonomous
Billard, you-can you read Class
Robots it in my face,2007
Spring IEEE Transactions on Systems,
http://lasa.epfl.ch
Man and Cybernetics, Part A,, 2001
Kaspar has 8DOF head and two 6DOF arms.
Rational behind the development of Kaspar is:

• consistency of appearance and complexity between the head, body and
hands to aid natural interaction
• minimal expressive features to create the impression of sociability
Mike Blow, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Andrew Appleby, Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, David Lee, The Art of
Designing Robot Faces - Dimensions for Human-Robot Interaction, Proc. AMC/IEEE HRI06, Salt
Lake City, Utah, USA, 2006, pp.A.G.
331Billard,
- 332.Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
331Billard,
e.g. Picasso’s cubic faces
e.g. a Photograph
e.g. Comics faces
331Billard,
Expressive Body Movements
Keepon (Kozima’s group, CRL, Japan):

Very simple but powerful design to convey joint attention
and turn taking behavior
Keepon's kinematic mechanism. Two gimbals are connected

by four wires; the lower gimbal is driven by two motors.
Another motor rotates the whole inner-structure; yet another

drives the skull downward for bobbing.

Attentive action Directing the head up/down and left/right so as to orient

Keepon's face/body to a certain target in the environment. Keepon seems
to be perceiving the target. This action includes eye-contact and joint
attention.
Emotive action Keeping its attention in a certain direction, Keepon rocks
its body from side to side and/or bobs its body up and down. Keepon
seems to express emotions (like pleasure and excitement) about the target.

Designing Robot Toys
Robota: Educational and Therapeutic Toy

What is the use of Robota?
Image of SDR- Image of My Real Baby

3x
SDR-3X, Sony Robota, DIDEL SA My Real Baby, IRobot Corp

Price: Luxury car (>$100’000.-) Price: $2’800.- Price: $100.-
Robota fills a gap in the market: It is an affordable humanoid robot

Teaching toy: It provides a nice basis for child-robot interaction
Education: It has development software, you can have several robots in a
class room
Design Issues behind Robota
Robota’s Body:
➢ Cuteness
➢ Human-likeness, i.e. respecting the body proportion of a young child
(between 16 and 20 months old),
➢ Naturalness of the motions, i.e. the robot’s motions should be human-
like.
Robota’s Capabilities:
Provided with capabilities for interactions that a child of this age would
display:
➢ To recognize human faces and direct its gaze towards the user,
➢ To understand and learn a restricted vocabulary
➢ Simple imitation of the user’s motion
First Prototype

◼Univ of Edinburgh, 1998
First Prototype
Learning Dance Movements

◼Univ of Edinburgh, 1998
Second Prototype
LAMI - EPFL, 1999

In collaborationA.G.
withBillard,
Jean-Daniel Nicoud and Andre Guignard
Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
Second Prototype
A.G.Toy
Billard, A. (2003) Robota: Clever Billard,
andAutonomous Robots
Educational ClassRobotics
Tool. Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
& Autonomous Systems,
Robota – The Product

Face and Motion Tracking
CMOS FlyCam camera
PDA - Pocket-PC
400MHz, 64Mb
Windows CE
Embedded C++
Speech Processing
CONVERSAY
synthesis + recognition
Kinesthetic – Haptic
Potentiometers
Touch
Switches A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
Robota – The Product
Since 1999, Robota is a commercial product sold by DIDEL SA, Switzerland

ROBOTA’S EYES
◼ Three degrees of
freedom:
- 1 for horizontal binocular
motion
- 2 for vertical motion (separate
blinking)
◼ Aesthetic: all components
within the head
Pongas, D., Guenter, F., Guignard, A. andBillard,

A.G. Billard,Autonomous
A. (2004) Development of a Miniature
Robots Class Spring 2007 Pair of Eyes With
http://lasa.epfl.ch
Camera for the Humanoid Robot Robota. IEEE-RAS/RSJ International Conference on Humanoid Robots.
ROBOTA’S EYES

Robota’s eyes
◼ 2 USB Cameras
◼ VGA (640X480)
◼ 15 frames per
second
IEEE Conf. In Humanoid Robotics, HUMANOIDS’04

Body and Brain must Match
It is fundamental that the robot’s cognitive capabilities

match its physical appearance.
• An “adult-like” humanoid robot will be expected to produce adult-like
capabilities (understanding of speech and complex manipulation
capabilities).
• Conversely, if one interacts with a baby-like robot, one will probably

have lower expectations on the robot’s speech and manipulation
capabilities.

Designing the body and the brain of a robot
Why are the key criteria?

• The robot’s body creates expectations in terms of the robot’s
capabilities.
• If these do not match, the robot loses some of its believability and of
its appeal.
What are the main challenges?

➢ To manage to endow the robot with complex facial and body
expressions, while not loosing the aesthetic of the robot.
➢ To better understand the complex and subtle effects that each of
these features have on human-robot interaction.

The importance of having human-like
motions
Ishiguro’s Android driven Real-time mapping of

by sinusoid-like motions human motion on the
Android

The Kindness of the Behaviour
Ri-Man robot from Riken

Human-like behavior
Robita, Waseda University Infanoid, CSL, ATR, Kyoto
Goal: Creates gaze contact and change gaze directionality with focus of
interest
Development: Oculo-motor control, eye-head coordination, visuo-audio
control A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch
Human-like behavior
Darrin Bentivegna, ATR, Kyoto Infanoid, CSL, ATR, Kyoto
Goal: Teaching the robot through imitation

Development: From recognizing to categorizing, learning and reproducing
gestures gestures

Human-like behavior
Subject standing against a wall Subject seated on a chair
4 different scenarios were studied in the trials where a robot approached

the subject who was located in the living room:
1) Seated on a chair in the middle of an open space.
2) Standing in the middle of an open space.
3) Seated at a table in the middle of an open space.
4) Standing with their back against a wall.
Sarah Naomi Woods, Michael Leonard Walters, Kheng Lee Koay, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2006) Methodological
Issues in HRI: A Comparison of Live and Video-Based Methods in Robot to Human Approach Direction Trials. Proc.
The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN06).
Human-like behavior
The main findings were:

• Humans strongly did not like a direct frontal approach by a robot, especially
while sitting (even at a table) or while standing with their back to a wall.
• An approach from the front left or front right was preferred.
• When standing in an open space a frontal approach was more
acceptable and although a rear approach was not usually most
preferred, it was generally acceptable to subjects if physically
more convenient.
Sarah Naomi Woods, Michael Leonard Walters, Kheng Lee Koay, Kerstin Dautenhahn (2006) Methodological
Issues in HRI: A Comparison of Live and Video-Based Methods in Robot to Human Approach Direction Trials. Proc.
The 15th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN06).
Human-like behavior
The child groups showed a dominant response to prefer the ‘social zone’
distance, comparable to distances people adopt when talking to other humans.
From the single adult studies a small majority preferred the ‘personal zone’,
reserved for talking to friends. However, significant minorities deviate from this
pattern.
M. L. Walters, K. Dautenhahn, K. L. Koay, C. Kaouri, R. te Boekhorst, C. L. Nehaniv, I. Werry, D. Lee (2005) Close
encounters: Spatial distances between people and a robot of mechanistic appearance. Proc. IEEE -RAS
International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids2005), pp. 450-455.
Summary
• The robot’s face must be appealing to enhance the
interaction
• It must be able to express emotions to which humans

can relate
• Brain and body must match → the robot’s capabilities

must match the expectations raised by its body features
• Simple designs can sometimes be more effective than

highly complex and realistic ones
• The robot must be endowed with basic social behaviors:

Joint attention, imitation, keep a desired distance.

CONTEST
Team of 3
Draw the most appealing robot
15 minutes

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Course SHS

Program in Cognitive Psychology

Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory - LASA

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Why is Aesthetic important?

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

It is a truism that people will be more inclined to interact

Typical appealing features are large eyes, symmetric and

Dolls’ faces versus Monster’s faces?

C. DiSalvo, F. Gemperle, J. Forlizzi, A.G.

19th-20th Century: Automata

• Mimicking the body and

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

PINO HOAP-1 SDR-3X, Sony Dream Robot

My Real Baby (2000) Robota (1997-2002)

"uncanny valley"[Mori 1970]

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Maverick, 2001 Berthoc, 2006

Surprisingly, however, many of the humanoid robots

University of Pisa & Kobayashi / Ishiguro’s Lab

Another set of attempts

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Repliee R1: Ishiguro’s lab, Osaka Univ.

Its body is covered with silicone, so the skin feels humanlike.

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Repliee R2: Ishiguro’s lab, Osaka Univ.

Facial expressions of the adult

Together with the company Kokoro, Ishiguro’s lab

Geminoid , Ishiguro’s Lab, Osaka University

The realism of the facial expressions

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Sad Happy Surprised

The Kismet Robot, C. Breazael, MIT, 1999

From left to right and top

Feelix robot by L. Canamero, MIT, 1999

Kaspar has 8DOF head and two 6DOF arms.

Rational behind the development of Kaspar is:

e.g. Picasso’s cubic faces

e.g. Comics faces

Keepon (Kozima’s group, CRL, Japan):

Keepon's kinematic mechanism. Two gimbals are connected

Another motor rotates the whole inner-structure; yet another

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Attentive action Directing the head up/down and left/right so as to orient

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Robota: Educational and Therapeutic Toy

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Image of SDR- Image of My Real Baby

SDR-3X, Sony Robota, DIDEL SA My Real Baby, IRobot Corp

Robota fills a gap in the market: It is an affordable humanoid robot

Design Issues behind Robota

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

Learning Dance Movements

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

LAMI - EPFL, 1999

Robota – The Product

Robota – The Product

Since 1999, Robota is a commercial product sold by DIDEL SA, Switzerland

Pongas, D., Guenter, F., Guignard, A. andBillard,

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

IEEE Conf. In Humanoid Robotics, HUMANOIDS’04

A.G. Billard, Autonomous Robots Class Spring 2007 http://lasa.epfl.ch

It is fundamental that the robot’s cognitive capabilities

• Conversely, if one interacts with a baby-like robot, one will probably