Hand-over Motion Model Based on Timing between Voice Utterances and Release Motions of Humans

As society ages, it is expected that robots will play important roles in the context of social welfare and service in the home and office. These robots must be able to coexist and cooperate with humans. One of the most important tasks that these robots may perform is handing over objects to a human. Many people hand over objects to each other accompanied by voice greetings; the hand-over motion is one of the embodied interactions. In the embodied interaction between a human and a robot, the timing between motions and voices affects motion characteristics that are preferred by humans. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a hand-over motion model based on the timing between the voice utterances and the release motions of humans. This model generates a motion in which a robot hands over an object to a human accompanied by a voice greeting. In this model, a hand-over motion is generated based on the analyses of human hand-over motions; in particular, the timing between the voice utterances and the release motions of humans is analyzed. Then, the model generates the release motion of a robot in response to a voice utterance from a human. Furthermore, a hand-over robot system that uses the proposed hand-over motion model is developed. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated by sensory evaluation using the proposed handover robot system. Keywords—Handshake, Robot-Human System, Embodied Interaction, Human Emotion