Ijiros

Ijiros are robot brothers which express emotions reacting a user's actions. They are not able to move itself because they don't have any actuators. They, however, express emotions with face in the display and voices from the speaker like a baby. They have been made base on the concept to make the friendship with users. Today, we can see many robots in not only industrial factory but also our various daily-life situation. These are getting more quick and correct responses back recently. However robots which support us in daily-life has been required to make a natural relationship with us, because they need to work with us directly such as elderly care situation. To make a natural relationship, it is important for us to be able to recognize robots as artifacts which have mind. Therefore, we tried to realize ”emotional communication” between robots and human beings to think and share their feeling each other beyond simple responses of commands and signals. As you can see, emotional communication between man and machines is the key of these works. In our case, we refers to ”vitality affect” in infant developmental psychology. Such as a hugged baby communicates his/her mother laughing or irritating, Ijiros also express emotions with faces and voices reacting from strength, kind, frequency, direction of user’s actions. Thus, Ijiros have been developed to entertain people to keep it like physical pets. We hope you all enjoy touching them.

Kazushi Mukaiyama
Future University Hakodate

Yujiro Kabutoya
Database Corporation