Enhancement of attachment behavior model for social robot to adapt in daily living environments

Abstract

Recently, social problems associated with a sense of isolation among elderly adults have been highlighted. To address this problem, we propose a long-term human-robot communication program inspired by human-dog relationships. An Etho-engine was improved upon to provide robot accommodations for access within rural regions. We generalized the robot's inner states and updated rules governing decision-making based on interactions with external situations. Additionally, to develop robot preferences for a person other than the owner, a "non-owner" was defined as being initially unfamiliar, with gradual acceptance being updated according to interaction histories and relationships between the non-owner and the owner. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the communication model. We discuss the effectiveness of this modified Etho-engine based on the experimental results.