Interaction with the Mercurial Robot

Abstract

Autonomation of daily tasks release human from various chores but physical and mental retrogression would be concerned because human lose familiar opportunities to do light exercise or feel a sense of accomplishment. In this paper, we proposed the new type of work assistant robot called "Mercurial robot" that express its tiredness to let human to help the work partly without negative impression for their work. In order to analyze the human reaction to this working concept, one case study was conducted using Mercurial robot which has fluctuated performance and appearance depending on its condition. The rapid results suggested that the Mercurial robot with organic metaphor of its performance condition such as animal facial expression would increase the amount of exercise and positive impression including users' sense of accomplishment.