Probo is a social robot intended to be used with children in a hospital environment to provide them with information, moral support and to comfort them in a possible difficult time. This paper reports on the early stages in the development of the expressive huggable robot Probo with potential applications for Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) and Robot-Assisted Therapy (RAT). Drawing on research in social communication, the robot head, capable of displaying basic emotions, is designed and compared with other social robot heads such as Kismet, Eddie and iCat. Some design criteria and their influence on the actual design are highlighted. This leads to a 17 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) modular non-anthropomorphic soft actuated robotic head.
展开▼
