ROBEE: A homeostatic-based social behavior controller for robots in Human-Robot Interaction experiments

An ongoing trend in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is social robot. A number of platforms have been developed with an ability to exhibit social behaviors. Unlike traditional robots, human expect a social robot to behave in a natural way i.e. making the decision itself and expressing emotions. This paper presents the development and implementation of ROBEE, a novel social behavior controller for robots with a focus on HRI studies. Using the homeostatic drive theory, ROBEE selects the behaviors in order to maintain the needs, mainly psychological and social, within an acceptable range. We propose a hybrid concept for the decision making process, which combines the hierarchical approach and Parallel-rooted, Ordered, Slip-stack Hierarchical (POSH)architecture. Emotions are mapped in a two-dimensional space consisting of valence and arousal. A joint attention HRI experiment with children and NAO robot has been conducted showing the usage of the controller. ROBEE is expected to be implemented in more robotic platforms.