Semi-Autonomous Robot Avatar as a Medium for Family Communication and Education

Robots as an embodied, multi-modal technology have great potential to be used as a new type of communication device. In this paper we outline our development of the Huggable robot as a semi-autonomous robot avatar for two specific types of remote interaction family communication and education. We also describe three different operator control interfaces (Web Interface, Wearable Interface, and Sympathetic Interface) being developed to explore how these systems will impact the experience. Furthermore, through our discussion we highlight how we have applied five important elements in our system to allow for the robot to function as a richly embodied communication channel. These five elements include sharing and directing attention, situational awareness through real-time sensor feedback, alleviating the cognitive load of a user, conveying personality and character of the robot, and global accessibility. Lastly, we provide results from a pilot study of the Web Interface. keywords: human robot interaction, interface, healthcare, education, communication