Hiroyuki Hoshino

Papers

Total Citations

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About

Hiroyuki Hoshino is a leading researcher in soft robotics and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on bio-inspired locomotion and assistive dialogue systems. His major contributions include the development of an inchworm-inspired soft robot that achieves active friction control using double-network (DN) hydrogel on its feet—a novel approach that enables adaptive sliding and gripping motions in soft-matter robotics. This work, published in 2019 and 2022, has garnered over 28 citations and demonstrates how soft materials can overcome limitations of traditional rigid-body robots. In parallel, Hoshino has advanced socially assistive robotics by creating an active listening system for conversation robots, designed to reduce loneliness and cognitive decline in older adults through reminiscence-based dialogue. His system robustly generates empathetic responses even from error-prone speech recognition, achieving sustained conversation with 45.5% of participants in user studies. With over 40 combined citations across his most influential works, Hoshino’s research bridges material innovation and human-centered AI, offering practical pathways toward robots that move like living organisms and communicate with genuine empathy.