Development of an embodied interaction system with InterActor by speech and hand motion input

InterActor is a CG embodied interaction character driven by iRT which is the InterRobot Technology to make communicative motions and actions based on only speech input for entrained interaction. In this paper, the concept of an embodied entrainment character InterPuppet is proposed by using both iRT and hand motion input like a puppet, so that humans can communicate effectively by introducing intentional body actions as well as natural communicative motions and actions. Two prototypes of the system with data glove and that with mobile keyboard are developed for the new embodied interaction and communication. The sensory evaluation demonstrates that the proposed systems have great advantage for communication support compared with conventional systems. Some actual and extensive applications to human interface are also demonstrated.