Minimal design strategy for embodied communication agents

Abstract

The design of communication robots remains a relatively underdeveloped field. Such robots are often designed on a trial-and-error basis. Also, the shape of a robot heavily depends on the personal experience of a designer. In this paper, we discuss a method of designing long-term communication robots, which we call "minimal design." It is unlike other industrial robot design methods. We have already produced some such communication robots, and here we provide explanations of them. Furthermore, we take our robots as examples of ideal communication robot design, we introduce our recent field observations. Finally, we illustrate by example a new idea for designing robot faces that is very different to conventional methods: it is based on a projected face easily produced using computer graphics. Some actuators are also included. This combination of light projection and conventional actuators in our proposed robot is the result of advances in robotics and screen agents.