Development of Humanoid Robot Design Process

This paper presents a design research conducted as a part of a larger project on intelligent humanoid robots. The primary goal of this study was to develop an initial understanding of how design on humanoid robots should be carried out. Humanoid robot design is different from conventional industrial design. A humanoid robot needs to have personality and character because it interacts emotionally with humans. Also, the design process should differ from that of machines such as automobiles and airplanes because it moves autonomously by recognizing its environment. As the development of human-computer interaction and interface design owe to the growth of computer industry, humanoid robot design should be studied widely and be accepted as a new design research area. There is, however, few research approaches on humanoid robot design. In order to build a fundamental study, we have developed new design processes of humanoid robot. They are rolecharacter design process and concurrent engineering process. The former is used to determine the basic specifications of humanoid character, and the latter is applied to build the physical humanoid structure. In order to verify the processes, we have carried out several types of humanoid robot design. Through this research we found that the new design process could effectively solve the traditional conflict between the design part and the engineering part. This paper presents our design process and proposes initial guidelines for the design of humanoid robots.