Intuitive multimodal interaction and predictable behavior for the museum tour guide robot Robotinho

Deploying robots at public places exposes highly complex systems to a variety of potential interaction partners of all ages and with different technical backgrounds. Most of these individuals may have never interacted with a robot before. This raises the need for robots with an intuitive user interface, usable without prior training. Furthermore, predictable robot behavior is essential to allow for cooperative behavior on the human side. Humanoid robots are advantageous for this purpose, as they look familiar to persons without robotic experience. Moreover, they are able to resemble human motions and behaviors, allowing intuitive human-robot-interaction. In this paper, we present our communication robot Robotinho. Robotinho is an anthropomorphic robot equipped with an expressive communication head. Its multimodal dialog system incorporates body language, gestures, facial expressions, and speech. We describe the behaviors used to interact with inexperienced users in a museum tour guide scenario. In contrast to previous work, our robot interacts with the visitors not only at the exhibits, but also while it is navigating to the next exhibit. We evaluated our system in a science museum and report quantitative and qualitative feedback from the users.