Design of a Male-type Dance Partner Robot for leading a physical Human-Robot Interaction

This paper presents an ongoing research project on developing a Male-type Dance Partner Robot, introducing a novel concept: leading in a physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI), under a social dance framework. Initially it is described the analysis performed to extract a minimal number of Degrees of Freedom (DOF) needed for a robot to perform a Human-like motion in the waltz dance. Subsequently using a robot prototype, pHRI experiments were used to determine the minimal force required to convey the motion intention from the robot to the human partner. Mechanical design of each joint and mechanism was performed based on these data. Finally the prototype design was constructed and compared with existent ones through simulation and CAD software showing advantages with existing ones on the physical structure, force interaction capabilities, and novel motion.