The design of a semi-autonomous robot avatar for family communication and education

Abstract

Robots as an embodied, multi-modal technology have great potential to be used as a new type of communication device. In this paper we outline our development of the Huggable robot as a semi-autonomous robot avatar for two specific types of remote interaction — family communication and education. Through our discussion we highlight how we have applied six important elements in our system to allow for the robot to function as a richly embodied communication channel.