Application of Robots for Enhancing Social Presence in Remote Communication Scenarios

Abstract

The application of robots will be in various situations soon, including the growing need for remote communication accelerated by the COVID-19 epidemic. The usage rate of instant messaging is higher than regular calling, including text, internet calls, and video calls. Since remote communication is now more convenient and more used than before, it is important to make the user experience in remote communication better and clearer. This research aims to design a robot for remote communication to enhance the social presence of remote objects through the interaction between humans and robots and propose a human-robot interaction model based on this purpose. They focus on people’s emotional expressions since one of the most important parts of communication between humans. In order to make it easier for users to accept the robot and have a nice interactive experience with it, the shape of the robot is designed as a beast-like. A bionic quadruped robot that can move flexibly is used as the design prototype, making it possible to adjust the video lens and screen simultaneously and make rich and diverse interactive actions. In this case, the robot would help its user communicate with others, making the user’s emotion expressed appropriately by the robot’s movement, sound, and facial expression. In order to accomplish these functions, the robot should also be able to recognize human facial expressions and body movements by using camera and image recognition; therefore, the robot can react to those inputs.

Keywords: Human-Robot-Interaction, Social Presence, Remote Communication

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002305