Generating behavioral protocol for human-robot physical contact interaction

An interactive system named HUMA is proposed for generating a behavioral protocol to enable physical contact between a human and a robot. HUMA employs a simultaneous method that continuously maintains a protocol database while manifesting the protocol by carrying out robot´s actions. The simultaneous method attempts to achieve mutual adaptation between a person and robot. In particular, since the human and HUMA can share the protocol throughout establishing the database, HUMA can distinguish between a humans´ behavior as a query and a behavior as physical contact. This paper describes the mechanisms of HUMA, which constructed on a communication robot named Robovie.