Feb 16 2011
Hisashi Ishihara, Yuichiro Yoshikawa and Professor Minoru Asada of Osaka University have built a baby robot termed as Affetto. The robot can make genuine facial responses, enabling humans to easily communicate with the robot.
Affeto Robot
This project is named as JST ERATO Asada Project and is headed by Prof. Minoru Asada. He is working on cognitive developmental robotics along with his research associates. The study focuses on comprehending the development of human intelligence using robots.
Affetto robot resembles a baby aged between one and two years. The robot will be deployed to investigate the preliminary phases of the development of human social behavior.
Previous efforts were aimed at exploring the communication between baby bots and humans and then linking the outcomes of the study to human social development. However, interaction between human and robot was interfered due to the lack of real baby-like looks and facial responses of the robot. Hence human caregivers develop a feeling of aversion and will not take care of the robot in a normal way.
The researchers explained their research in creating Affetto's head and presented their paper at the Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan, which was held in 2010.
Source: http://www.osaka-u.ac.jp