透過Kinect驅動動畫增進Pepper機器人與使用者的親近度

Enhancing Familiarity for Pepper Robots by Adopting Kinect-Driven Animations

謝薇棻(Wei-Fen Hsieh)

指導教授 ： 陳履恒

國立暨南國際大學/科技學院/資訊工程學系/碩士(2016年)

摘要

近年在高齡化、少子化的影響之下，台灣的社會結構逐漸轉變，高齡化的問題導致許多年長者在家中獨自生活。年長者在家中不一定有能力照顧自己的生活起居，為了因應這個問題，隨著科技的發展之下，發展出許多照護監測設備，市面上有許多的穿戴式感測器、居家安全監測器，方便家庭中其他成員能夠及時了解年長者的身體狀況，或是在家中活動的狀況，也能夠掌握緊急事件的發生例如年長者摔倒或是發生意外等。

2015年在日本 發表的Pepper機器人在家庭照護方面也能夠發揮很大的作用，例如能夠與年長者進行對話。但機器人無法表達自己的情緒，即使Pepper能夠提供照護陪伴以及其他的幫助，對於年長者而言要面對冷冰冰面無表情機器人或許不是這麼親切。因此本研究使用Kinect感測器搭配Unity遊戲引擎軟體錄製Pepper模型的影片，藉由Kinect感測人體的骨架動作套用到Pepper機器人模型之上，讓Pepper機器人胸口前的平板裝置能夠播放出客製化的Pepper模型動作，以及藉由Pepper模型的臉部表情變化，運用誇張的動作以及有趣生動的顏文字表達Pepper的心情變化，讓Pepper機器人能夠與人類的情緒產生連結感。

關鍵字

人類機器人介面 ； Pepper機器人 ； Kinect ； Unity

並列摘要

Due to the aging population problem and the tendency to have fewer children, Taiwan’s society structure has been changed dramatically. This problem causes the elder usually stay alone in the house and have to take care of themselves. With the development of technology, we now have some methods to deal with this problem; for example, there are lots of wearable sensor and home surveillance devices available for different applications. These devices are also convenient for other family members to keep an eye on the body condition and check on the elderly.
There are many related researches has been proposed for elderly caring with the assistant from robot. Pepper the robot, released in Japan in 2015, is able to talk with the elder and company them. However, Pepper can’t express his emotion directly by facial expression. This might be less intimate for the elder though Pepper can talk, move, and provide information searching services. In this research, Pepper’s 3D model is animated by utilizing Kinect for capturing user-defined motions. The animation is displayed on the tablet in the front of Pepper’s chest to present his emotion. Our animations replace the unchangeable robot face with interesting kaomoji expressions which are closer to our daily life experience and have better connection to our emotion.

並列關鍵字

Human-Robot Interaction ； Pepper the robot ； Kinect ； Unity

參考文獻

Reference

I. English Reference:

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[2] Gross, H. M., Schroeter, C., Mueller, S., Volkhardt, M., Einhorn, E., Bley, A., ... & Merten, M. (2011, September). Progress in developing a socially assistive mobile home robot companion for the elderly with mild cognitive impairment. InIntelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on(pp. 2430-2437). IEEE.

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