Using Facial Expression and Body Language to Express Attitude for Non-Humanoid Robot (Extended Abstract)

This work investigates designing social interactions for robots that are large and sturdy, and whose bodies may be not built proportionally to human. A modified version of Baxter robot was used. We examined the usage of facial expression, social dialogue, and arm movement to make people feel comfortable to interact with the robot. Our results show that body language may play a more important role than facial expressions for such robots, and that the synchronization between speech and body movements is critical.