System design and implementation of social interactive robot Nancy

This paper presents a social interactive robot Nancy that has been developed in Social Robotics Laboratory, National University of Singapore. Fundamentally different from factory robots, Nancy´s design focuses on social interaction and social intelligent system. The design objectives and consideration are examined in the beginning, followed by the description of hardware and software architectures. Contrast to current existing social robots, Nancy has a graphical user interface (GUI), which acts as an additional channel for human-robot interaction. This GUI helps users to have a better understanding of Nancy´s internal states and hence make users feel more comfortable during the interaction with Nancy. Visitors´ interaction experience with Nancy is discussed together with Nancy´s social skills.