Active eye contact for human-robot communication

ABSTRACT

Eye contact is an effective means of controlling communication for humans, such as starting communication. It seems that we can make eye contact if we look at each other. However, this alone cannot complete eye contact. In addition, we need to be aware of being looked by each other. We propose a method of active eye contact for human-robot communication considering both conditions. The robot changes its facial expressions according to the observation results of the human to make eye contact. Then, we present a robot that can recognize hand gestures after making eye contact with the human to show the effectiveness of eye contact as a means of controlling communication.

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INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
embodied agent, eye contact, gaze, gesture recognition, human-robot interface, nonverbal behavior