Probo, an Intelligent Huggable Robot for HRI Studies with Children

Abstract

Nowadays, robots are mostly known for their work in factories in industries such as automotive, electrical and electronics, chemical, rubber and plastics and many others. Robots are used for a wide variety of tasks like handling of materials and processes, welding and soldering, etc. The next generation of robots will be used in close collaboration with people in a wide spectrum of applications. For example, service robots will help elderly and assist disabled people. Household robots will be used in our homes and offices. Our children will play with entertainment robots. Medical robots assist in surgery and robotic prostheses replace limbs for amputees. Orthoses and exoskeletons can facilitate the rehabilitation process to regain mobility or manipulation skills. They also enlarge human strengths to carry heavy objects, for instance, nurses lifting a patient in and out of a bed. In lots of applications human and robots will work in a more close collaboration. For instance, NASA is developing a Robonaut to work together with astronauts in space. Statistics from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) show worldwide an increasing request of innovative robots, especially in non-automotive sectors. A growth can be noticed in both traditional and new markets, ranging from the industrial field to the service robotics, both for professional use and for domestic applications. However, European society has a different relationship towards robots than the Japanese or US society. The Japanese are more accepting of technological change. For instance, robots have always been a source of comics and amusement in Japan, making it easier to introduce robots into a personal environment. The Japanese Robot Association (JARA) predicts that the personal robot industry will be worth more than $50 billion dollars a year worldwide by 2025, compared with about $5 billion today. The technology of current industrial robots is insufficient to respond to this issue. This means that human-robot interaction using social robots must be studied in the different regions all over the world to address the different needs. Reasons why personal robotics is emerging now are the fact that actuators and sensors can be made very small and cheap, and the required computational power for computing real time all the software components is still increasing. And, last but not least, the markets for such robots are coming. Especially the aging population in Japan, Europe and United States faces a number of daunting societal problems. Also its dwindling work force and the increased cost of care demand out-of-the-box thinking. Companion and service robots are one part of the solution. However, the shift from industrial robots towards these service, personal and domestic robots leads to specific design criteria. For instance, an industrial robots can carry heavy