Humanoid with Interaction Ability Using Vision and Speech Information

Intelligent robots will make a chance for us to use a computer in our daily life. We implemented a humanoid robot for the computerized university guidance at first and then some capabilities for the natural interaction are added. This paper describes the hardware and software system of this humanoid with interaction ability. HRP-2 sitting opposite to a user across a table can detect gaze direction, head pose and gestures using a stereo camera system attached to the head. In addition, our system can recognize the user´s question utterance and non-stationary noise such as coughing and sneezing using microphones. Using efficiently such information, HRP-2 can answer the question by its synthesized voice with gestures and do tasks such as passing objects on the table