Presentation Robot System with Interaction for Class

Abstract

This paper describes a presentation robot system that interacts with a large-group in a classroom. We are developing a presentation robot to give a lecture at the university. However, it is difficult to apply the robot interactions of previous researches to a large group. Furthermore, to continue the robot presentation for a long time, the interaction with a robot should be initiated not only by the robot but also by the participants. Therefore, our research target is the development of a presentation robot system for a large group, with robot interaction initiated by the participants. To interact with the participants, we developed the presentation robot system using a PC application. As the hardware, we use a humanoid robot PALRO named Masaru, and PCs for each participant. As the software, we designed a communication protocol for performing the lecture smoothly and steadily. For interacting with the participants, we made an answer button to answer the question from the robot and a query button for voluntary response from the participants. As an experiment, we performed a formal lecture using Masaru for one class. The result shows that the participants indicate their intentions actively by using the application. Furthermore, Masaru’s lecture involved the participants through interaction with the application, and the interest of the participants was increased by the robot presentation with interaction.