Identification and Evaluation of the Face System of a Child Android Robot Affetto for Surface Motion Design

Faces of android robots are one of the most important interfaces to communicate with humans quickly and effectively, as they need to match the expressive capabilities of the human face, it is no wonder that they are complex mechanical systems containing inevitable non-linear and hysteresis elements derived from their non-rigid components. Identifying the input-output response properties of this complex system is necessary to design surface deformations accurately and precisely. However, to date, android faces have been used without careful system identification and thus remain black boxes. In this study, the static responses of three-dimensional displacements were investigated for 116 facial surface points against a discrete trapezoidal input provided to each actuator in the face of a child-type android robot Affetto. The results show that the response curves can be modeled with hysteretical sigmoid functions, and that the response properties of the face actuators, including sensitivity, hysteresis, and dyssynchrony, were quite different. The paper further proposes a design methodology for surface motion patterns based on the obtained response models. Design results thus obtained indicate that the proposed response properties enable us to predict the design results, and that the proposed design methodology can cancel the differences among the response curves of the actuators. The proposed identification and quantitative evaluation method can be applied to advanced android face studies instead of conventional qualitative evaluation methodologies

A Study Of Auti: A Socially Assistive Robotic Toy

This thesis is an evaluation of, Auti, a new socially assistive robot designed by the author for children with autism. The study investigates whether Auti is effective at encouraging positive play interactions and reducing challenging play interactions through the application of Applied Behaviour Analysis principles. The toy aims to encourage positive play behaviours, such as gentle speaking and touching, using positive reinforcement by responding with movement. It aims to discourage challenging behaviours, such as screaming or hitting, through the removal of the reinforcing movements. The study evaluates the design by comparing how children with ASD play with a fully-interactive Auti to how they play with an active-only version which does the same movements but does not respond to the child. The study also looks at how children classify the toy and whether there is any indication that the skills they learn with Auti will be generalized to other areas. Results from 18 matched participants with confirmed ASD diagnoses indicate that the Interactive Auti does encourage positive behaviours more than the Active-only version, thus showing that it can be an effective medium for applying ABA principles of reinforcement. However, further design and research is needed around addressing challenging behaviours and increasing the range of the children’s behavioural responses