Follow me: Communicating intentions with a spherical robot

Abstract

In recent years, robots have gradually become incorporated in our society and therefore play more relevant role in social environments. These robots vary in form, some being more anthropomorphic than others. This, creates a need to study their interaction with the world. In this paper we used Sphero and BB-8, two robots with a simple spherical body devoid of verbal and other complex communication methods, to investigate how they can communicate intention to people. A set of behaviors based on pet behaviors was designed and tested in a controlled experiment, where the robot's aim was to convince a participant to follow it. We concluded that the use of these behaviors allows a robot to effectively communicate intention as well as create a bond with the participant, who would treat it as an equal, thereby engaging it in social interactions such as playing with it or talking to it.