An Architecture for Telenoid Robot as Empathic Conversational Android Companion for Elderly People

In Human-Humanoid Interaction (HHI), empathy is the crucial key in order to overcome the current limitations of social robots. In facts, a principal defining characteristic of human social behaviour is empathy. The present paper presents a robotic architecture for an android robot as a basis for natural empathic human-android interaction. We start from the hypothesis that the robots, in order to become personal companions need to know how to empathic interact with human beings. To validate our research, we have used the proposed system with the minimalistic humanoid robot Telenoid. We have conducted human-robot interactions test with elderly people with no prior interaction experience with robot. During the experiment, elderly persons engaged a stimulated conversation with the humanoid robot. Our goal is to overcome the state of loneliness of elderly people using this minimalistic humanoid robot capable to exhibit a dialogue similar to what usually happens in real life between human beings. The experimental results have shown a humanoid robotic system capable to exhibit a natural and empathic interaction and conversation with a human user.