Development of an android system integrated with sensor networks

In order to develop a robot that has a human-like presence, the robot must be given a very human-like appearance and behavior, and a sense of perception that enables it to communicate with humans. We have developed an android robot called ldquoRepliee Q2rdquo that closely resembles a human being; however, the sensors mounted on its body are not sufficient to allow human-like communication due to factors such as sensing range and spatial resolution. To overcome this problem, we endowed the environment surrounding the android with perceptive capabilities by embedding a variety of sensors into it. This sensor network provides the android with human-like perception by constantly and extensively monitoring human activities in a less obvious manner. This paper reports on an android system that is integrated with a sensor network system embedded in the environment. A human-android interaction experiment shows that the integrated system provides relatively human-like interaction.