Natascha Esau
Papers
9
Total Citations
94
H-Index
5
About
Natascha Esau is a pioneering researcher in affective robotics, specializing in human-robot interaction and emotional intelligence for autonomous systems. Her most significant contribution is the development of MEXI (Machine with Emotionally eXtended Intelligence), a robot head capable of recognizing, expressing, and reacting to human emotions through natural speech and facial expressions. Esau’s work uniquely integrates fuzzy logic for prosody-based emotion recognition from natural speech, enabling MEXI to detect emotional states in both familiar and unfamiliar speakers—a critical step toward socially competent robots. Her key research areas include emotion recognition from speech prosody, fuzzy rule-based systems, and the integration of emotional competence into robot behavior control. Her most cited paper, "Fuzzy emotion recognition in natural speech dialogue" (2006, 30 citations), details this approach, while "Prosody based emotion recognition for MEXI" (2005, 22 citations) and the foundational "MEXI: machine with emotionally eXtended intelligence" (2003, 14 citations) established her reputation. Esau’s work has been instrumental in demonstrating that robots can engage in emotionally nuanced communication, bridging the gap between machine functionality and human social expectations.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Fuzzy emotion recognition in natural speech dialogue30 citations · 2006
- 2Prosody based emotion recognition for MEXI22 citations · 2005
- 3MEXI: machine with emotionally eXtended intelligence14 citations · 2003
- 4
- 5Emotional Communication with the Robot Head MEXI7 citations · 2006
- 6Emotional Robot Competence and Its Use in Robot Behavior Control5 citations · 2010
- 7Real-Time Camera Tracking for Mobile Devices: The VisiTrack System3 citations · 2006
- 8VisiTrack - video based incremental tracking in real time3 citations · 2004
- 9Integrating Emotional Competence into Man-Machine Collaboration2 citations · 2008