Display of Emotions with the Robotic Platform ALIAS

Abstract:
Emotions are an important communication channel and therefore, human-machine interaction can be enriched by displaying emotions. Especially for a robotic system designed for technology-inexperienced users as in an AAL context, display of emotions is a good way to increase the familiarity with a technical system. In this contribution, we describe how the robotic head of the robotic platform ALIAS is used to display emotions. In the project ALIAS, the robot is equipped as a communication platform for elderly people. Emotions are used to enrich the human-machine interaction. ALIAS can thus better adapt to its users during a dialogue. The robotic head has several degrees of freedom to display different facial expressions. Five different facial expressions corresponding to five different emotions have been developed. In a user study it was tested, how humans perceive the displayed emotions. The results are promising, however, the absence of a mouth makes it difficult to design emotions which can be recognized by humans very robustly.