EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS IN ROBOT

• US 20080119959A1
• Filed: 10/31/2007
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/21/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: CHO, Young Jo, PARK, Cheonshu, RYU, Joung Woo, SOHN, Joo Chan
• Application Number:
  US11/930,659
• Publication Number:
  US 20080119959A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/245
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 3/008 based on physical entities controlled by simulated intelligence so as to replicate intelligent life forms, e.g. based on robots replicating pets or humans in their appearance or behaviour

Abstract

A method and apparatus for expressing an emotion of a robot, which are applicable to different emotion robot platforms are provided. The method of expressing an emotion of a robot, the method includes: collecting emotion information by at least one internal or external sensor; generating an emotion and determining a behavior based on the collected information; determining an emotion expression, emotional intensity, and an action unit according to the generated emotion; generating an emotion expression document according to the determined emotion expression, emotional intensity, and action unit; analyzing the emotion expression document; and controlling the robot based on the initial status information of the robot and the generated emotion expression document.

Claims

1. An apparatus for expressing an emotion of a robot, the apparatus comprising:

an emotion information receiving unit receiving an internal or external stimulus as emotion information;

an emotion generating unit determining an initial status of the robot by using the emotion information received from the emotion information receiving unit and generating an emotion;

a behavior determining unit determining a behavior corresponding to the emotion;

an emotion expression managing unit generating an emotion expression document for expressing the emotion as an action of the robot by using the emotion, the initial status of the robot, and the behavior;

an emotion expression processing unit receiving and analyzing the emotion expression document; and

a robot controller controlling an individual action unit to execute an action according to the result of the emotion expression processing unit.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the emotion expression managing unit comprises:

an emotion expression generating unit generating a model with regard to the emotion generated by the emotion generating unit;

an emotion action expression generating unit generating a model with regard to a basic action unit including the behavior determined by the behavior determining unit and the status information of the basic action unit;

an emotion expression document generating unit generating a model with regard to the emotion and the behavior as the emotion expression document; and

an emotion expression document transmitting unit transmitting the emotion expression document to the emotion expression processing unit.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the emotion expression managing unit further comprises:

an emotion action receiving unit receiving a message indicating that the action unit does not exist from the emotion expression processing unit, if the action unit to be controlled by the emotion expression processing unit is not identical or does not exist; and

a sub unit generating unit generating a model with regard to sub unit information necessary if the action unit with regard to the behavior determined by the behavior determining unit does not exist,

wherein the emotion expression document further includes a sub unit status information model.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the emotion expression processing unit comprises:

an emotion expression document receiving unit receiving the emotion expression document generated by the emotion expression managing unit;

a document analyzing unit analyzing the emotion expression document;

an action unit message transmitting unit, if no action unit corresponds to the emotion expression document analyzed by the document analyzing unit, transmitting an message indicating that no action unit exists to the emotion expression managing unit in order to generate a sub action unit; and

a control command transmitting unit transmitting a control command to the robot controller based on the command analyzed by the document analyzing unit.

5. An apparatus for instructing expression of an emotion of a robot, the apparatus comprising:

a meta information expression unit providing a model analyzing a part that needs to be controlled and determining whether the part is suitable for an action unit in order to control the robot; and

an emotion expression unit providing two models respectively with regard to emotions and behavior based on meta information.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the meta information expression unit comprises:

an emotion type determining unit determining whether the emotion comprises a main emotion type or a composite emotion type;

an action type determining unit determining whether the behavior comprises a basic action type or a sub action type; and

an action unit determining unit determining an action unit with regard to the emotion.

7. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the emotion expression unit comprises:

a main emotion expressing unit, if only one emotion is generated, defining the emotion as a representative emotion and demonstrating the representative emotion;

a composite emotion expression unit, if two or more emotions are generated, providing a model for expressing the two or more composite emotions;

an emotion intensity expression unit describing an intensity of the emotion generated using a numerical value; and

an action expression unit providing an expression model necessary for expressing behavior.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the action expression unit comprises:

an action unit status information expression unit describing an initial status information of a robot unit;

a basic action unit expression unit expressing information on an action unit generated based on the behavior generated by the behavior determining unit; and

a sub action unit expression unit, when the action unit generated based on the behavior generated by the behavior determining unit does not exist in an emotion robot platform, expressing information on a unit as a means of substitution for the action unit.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the emotion expression unit from which the action expression unit is separated assigns an intrinsic ID to a main emotion expression unit and a composite emotion expression unit of the emotion expression unit, and describes the action expression unit using a reference that is mapped to each ID.

10. A method of expressing an emotion of a robot, the method comprising:

collecting emotion information by at least one internal or external sensor;

generating an emotion and determining a behavior based on the collected information;

determining an emotion expression, emotional intensity, and an action unit according to the generated emotion;

generating an emotion expression document according to the determined emotion expression, emotional intensity, and action unit;

analyzing the emotion expression document; and

controlling the robot based on the initial status information of the robot and the generated emotion expression document.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the generating of the emotion and determining of the behavior comprises:

separately generating the emotion as a main emotion and composite emotions.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the analyzing of the emotion expression document comprises:

if it is determined that the action unit does not exist, regenerating the emotion expression document including a sub unit.