This paper reports on the development of a domestic user-interface robot that is able to have a natural human interaction by speech and emotional feedback and is able to navigate in a home environment. The natural interaction with the user is achieved by means of a mechanical head able to express emotions. The robot is aware of the position and identities of the users, both from visual and auditory information. The robot estimates its location in the environment with an appearance-based localization method using a stereo camera system. The navigation to the goal is achieved with a hybrid method, combining planning with reactive control. The robot is designed to operate in an intelligent environment, such that external information can be used to localize users and their intentions (context awareness), and that additional information can be retrieved from various databases in the environment. The result is a service robot that can have a simple dialogue with the user, provide information in a natural way (speech and expressions) and can be instructed to navigate to any specific goal in the environment.
['Ben J. A. Kröse', 'Josep M. Porta', 'Albert J. N. van Breemen', 'Ko Crucq', 'Marnix Nuttin', 'Eric Demeester']
Lino, the User-Interface Robot