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About

Hiroaki Matsuda is a robotics researcher whose work lies at the intersection of human-robot interaction, emotional expression, and safe autonomous navigation. His most influential research explores how flying robots can communicate emotions through body language, demonstrating through subjective experiments that specific movement parameters—such as speed and trajectory—can reliably convey feelings like happiness, sadness, or fear. This foundational work on emotional body expressions for aerial robots has garnered 9 citations and opens new possibilities for more intuitive drone interfaces in entertainment, search-and-rescue, and social robotics. Matsuda has also made significant contributions to human-friendly robot navigation, developing predictive models of human movement trajectories to enable safer path planning for mobile robots operating in shared environments. His work on common platforms for small humanoid robots addresses the fragmentation in hobbyist and research robotics, proposing standardized designs to improve development efficiency. Additionally, Matsuda has advanced robotics education through the creation of shooting robot contests as teaching tools, helping students model real-world robot-environment interactions. His research consistently bridges technical innovation with human-centered design, making robots more expressive, safer, and more accessible.