Papers
53
Total Citations
2,208
H-Index
21
About
Tetsuo Ono is a pioneering robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of cognitive science, human-robot interaction, and social robotics. Best known for his foundational contributions to the development of Robovie — one of the earliest and most influential interactive humanoid robots — Ono has dedicated his career to building machines capable of meaningful communication with humans through nonverbal cues, gesture, and embodied behavior. His early papers on Robovie (2001–2004) collectively amassed over 800 citations, establishing him as a central figure in designing robots that participate in human society as genuine partners rather than mere tools. Ono's research explores how physical embodiment enriches communication, investigating joint attention, gaze direction, body movement analysis, and gesture modeling to make human-robot exchanges feel natural and intuitive. His 2007 work on the android Geminoid HI-1 (220 citations) pushed boundaries further, demonstrating that a human-like android could convincingly convey telepresence, with participants perceiving stronger human connection through the android than through conventional video. Across more than a decade of research, Ono's contributions have profoundly shaped our understanding of how robots can engage socially, influencing generations of researchers in HRI and socially intelligent systems.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Development and evaluation of an interactive humanoid robot "Robovie"272 citations · 2003
- 2Development and evaluation of interactive humanoid robots267 citations · 2004
- 3Robovie: an interactive humanoid robot261 citations · 2001
- 4Android as a telecommunication medium with a human-like presence220 citations · 2007
- 5Physical relation and expression: joint attention for human~robot interaction172 citations · 2003
- 6A humanoid robot that pretends to listen to route guidance from a human108 citations · 2006
- 7Body movement analysis of human-robot interaction86 citations · 2003
- 8A constructive approach for developing interactive humanoid robots64 citations · 2003
- 9Robot mediated round table: Analysis of the effect of robot's gaze63 citations · 2003
- 10A Model of Embodied Communications with Gestures between Human and Robots63 citations · 2001