• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.270-277
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• 2008

The development of a face robot basically targets very natural human-robot interaction (HRI), especially emotional interaction. So does a face robot introduced in this paper, named Buddy. Since Buddy was developed for a mobile service robot, it doesn't have a living-being like face such as human's or animal's, but a typically robot-like face with hard skin, which maybe suitable for mass production. Besides, its structure and mechanism should be simple and its production cost also should be low enough. This paper introduces the mechanisms and functions of mobile face robot named Buddy which can take on natural and precise facial expressions and make dynamic gestures driven by one laptop PC. Buddy also can perform lip-sync, eye-contact, face-tracking for lifelike interaction. By adopting a customized emotional reaction decision model, Buddy can create own personality, emotion and motive using various sensor data input. Based on this model, Buddy can interact probably with users and perform real-time learning using personality factors. The interaction performance of Buddy is successfully demonstrated by experiments and simulations.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.86-92
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• 2022

Utilization of small robots in psychology and biology provides a new breakthrough in understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of various animal behavior. The expansion of robot use in animal research is partly due to increased availability of economically plausible mobile robots and also due to the current shift in animal research toward more ecologically valid experiments. Ground-breaking experimental findings are expected when the behavioral variables are manipulated in more natural situations. In addition, the results from laboratory could be generalized more easily with added ecological validity. The current paper attempts to review a wide range of applications of animal robots used to study animal behavior and to highlight major advantages and limitations. In particular, this review focuses more on the psychological impact of animal robots than engineering details about their structure and operation. Finally, this review will provide some practical considerations when employing robots in animal experiments.