Hiroaki Sugiyama

About

Hiroaki Sugiyama is a researcher whose work bridges the foundational challenges of autonomous robotics with the nuanced frontiers of human-robot interaction and conversational AI. His early, highly-cited research established a critical method for autonomous mobile robots to recognize their global position while simultaneously building a map of their environment—a fundamental problem in robotics that has garnered 19 citations and laid groundwork for spatial AI. More recently, Sugiyama has focused on making conversational systems more natural and engaging. He has pioneered the use of inter-robot interaction to improve dialogue continuity, showing that robots conversing with each other can create more coherent and relatable exchanges for human users. His work on proactive conversation between multiple robots further enhances the sense of genuine human-robot dialogue. As part of the prestigious “Can a Robot Get into the University of Tokyo?” project, Sugiyama contributed to an AI system that tackled English exams, achieving a better-than-human score in 2014. This achievement underscores his commitment to creating user-friendly, socially adept conversational agents, moving beyond simple command-response systems toward truly interactive and intelligent partners.

Research Focus

Key Achievements

Top Papers

1. 1
   A method for an autonomous mobile robot to recognize its position in the global coordinate system when building a map

   19 citations · 2002
2. 2
   Improving Dialogue Continuity using Inter-Robot Interaction

   5 citations · 2018
3. 3
   Proactive Conversation between Multiple Robots to Improve the Sense of Human-Robot Conversation.

   3 citations · 2017
4. 4
   Towards User-friendly Conversational Systems

   2 citations · 2016
5. 5
   Taking the English Exam for the “Can a Robot Get into the University of Tokyo?” Project

   2 citations · 2015

Key Collaborators

Contact & Links