Interaction between creature and robot: development of an experiment system for rat and rat robot interaction

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a trial to realize interaction between creatures and robots. As the first step, rats were selected as an experimental target as a simplified form of interaction between human and humanoid robots. A rat robot was developed. Infrared transmitter, similar outlook of rat's figure and size, front-wheel steering and rear-wheel driving mechanism were equipped to the robot as the main features of the robot. An experiment system was developed to enable interaction between the rat robot and rats. The experiment system is equipped with a color CCD camera which captures and processes images of the rat and the rat robot in real-time. Behavioral experiments were performed with the system. As a result, it was confirmed that behaviors of the rat robot influence the rat's behaviors.