Designing an Expressive Head for a Help Requesting Socially Assistive Robot

Abstract

In this paper, we present the developments regarding an expressive robot head for our socially assistive mobile robot HERA, which among other things is serving as an autonomous delivery system in public buildings. One aspect of that task is contacting and interacting with unconcerned people in order get help when doors are to open or an elevator has to be used. We designed and tested a robot head comprising a pan-tilt unit, 3D-printed shells, animated eyes displayed on two LCD-screens, and three arrays of RGB-LEDs for communicating internal robot states and attracting potential helpers’ interest. An online-study was performed to compare variations of eye-expression and LED lighting. Data was extracted from the answers of 139 participants. Statistical analysis showed significant differences in identification performance for our intended eye-expressions, perceived politeness, help intentions, and hedonic user experience.