This study attempts to analyze the economic impact of the service robot industry using Input-Output analysis, which is conducted based on Demand-driven model, the Leontief price model, the Backward and Forward Linkage Effects, and the Exogenous Methods. In a Demand-driven model analysis, we can conclude that the service robot industry contains characteristics of both the manufacturing industry and the service industry, which causes a positive impact on the overall industry by compensating for the weaknesses of the two industries. The Leontief price analysis indicates when wages in the service robot industry increase, prices related to robot manufacturing also increase. Also, when profits in the service robot industry increase, prices related to service provision increase, too. The Backward and Forward Linkage Effects analysis shows that the service robot industry is highly sensitive to the current economic condition and has a great influence on the service industry. The service robot industry can highlight the aspect of service characteristics when the manufacturing industry is in recession and vice versa. In addition, the service robot industry can be regarded as a value-adding and domestic economy promoting industry which utilizes knowledge of information and communication technologies. It is important to foster the service robot industry in South Korea, which is in economic recession to provide an opportunity to stimulate the growth of both service and robot industries.

Building on Technology Readiness and Acceptance Model(TRAM), the study aimed to examine how technology readiness affects consumers’ perceptions of ease of use, usefulness, and risk, which in turn predict their intention to use retail service robots. Specifically, the study proposed that technology readiness motivators (optimism and innovativeness) would influence perceived ease of use and usefulness, while technology readiness inhibitors (discomfort and insecurity) would affect perceived risk. The study further examined if the perception factors (ease of use, usefulness, and risk) contribute to intention to use retail service robots. A survey method was used with data collected from Korean consumers. The final sample size was 418. The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings of the study revealed that technology readiness motivators positively affected perceived ease of use and usefulness while innovativeness had no impact on usefulness. All the inhibitors increased perceived risk. Lastly, as hypothesized, perceptions of ease of use, usefulness, and risk predicted intention to use retail service robots. This study extended the retail technology literature by applying and validating TRAM to the context of consumer acceptance of retail service robots. The study further helped marketers and retailers by highlighting the importance of technology readiness in improving consumer perceptions and responses towards retail service robots.

첨단 기술, 네트워크 등의 발전과 지능기반 사회의 변화로 인 간형 로봇 개발이 활발하게 진행 중에 있다. 특히 일상생활에 서 인간과 자연스럽게 상호 작용할 수 있는 인간 지향적인 개 인서비스 로봇에 대한 연구가 중요해지고 있다. 하지만 국내의 개인서비스 로봇 연구를 살펴보면 기반기술 개발에 치중한 정 부의 지원과 연구로 인간이 진정으로 원하는 로봇의 기능이나 형태 등의 로봇 디자인에 대한 연구가 미흡한 실정이다. 이에 본 연구는 개인서비스 로봇 디자인 방향을 제시하는 것을 목적 으로 하며, 이를 위해서 로봇의 시장 요구사항 분석, 로봇 시장 트렌드 분석, 소비자 인식 및 요구 분석을 진행하였다. 그 결과 개인서비스 로봇이 인간의 일상생활에서 활용 가능한 기능 디 자인과 감성 디자인을 중심으로 개인서비스 로봇의 디자인을 위한 방향을 제시하였다. 이러한 결과를 통해서 본 연구는 개 인서비스 로봇의 콘셉트, 기능, 콘텐츠, 외형 등을 디자인하거 나 새로운 아이디어를 제안하는데 기여할 수 있을 것이다.

현재 진행되고 있는 대부분의 로봇 연구는 특정한 목적을 수행함에 있어서 기능적으로 안정적이고 원활한 움직임을 보이는 것과 더불어 사용자가 원하는 정보를 적절하게 전달하는 것에 초점을 맞춰 진행하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 로봇의 작업수행 상태가 아닌 외부로부터 입력 값이 없는 대기상태의 행동패턴을 제시하여 보다 자연스러운 인간-로봇 상호작용을 제시하고자 하였다. 로봇의 대기상태 행동패턴을 디자인함에 있어서 비디오 판독 방법을 선택하였고, 실제 서비스업에 종사하는 10명의 사람들을 비디오로 녹화하여 사람들과 상호작용이 없는 대기상태의 반복적인 행동패턴을 관찰하였다. 각각의 비디오 데이터로부터 총 21개의 반복적 행동을 기록하였고, 비슷한 항목들을 통합하여 최종적으로 11개의 행동패턴을 추출하였다. 추출된 패턴들 가운데 6개의 대표적인 행동들을 EEEX라는 로봇에 적합하도록 인코딩 작업을 하였고, 이것들이 사람들에게 올바르게 인식되는지를 확인하기 위하여 검증실험을 수행하였다. 사람들은 대부분의 로봇 행동패턴을 실험에서 의도한 바와 같이 인식하였으나 로봇의 하드웨어 특성상 몸과 팔의 움직임에서 약간의 혼동 요소가 있었다. 추후 실험을 통해 EEEX를 대형 마트의 입구에 실제로 배치하여 대기 중에 중립행동을 보일 때와 보이지 않을 때의 손님의 관심도 차이를 조사해보고자 한다.

인간은 보다 풍요로운 삶을 살고자 하는 욕구와 최근 소비문화의 변화는 대형 할인매장이라는 소비시장의 생성을 가능케 하였고, 이는 할인매장에서 소비자의 사용 편의에 대한 욕구가 더욱 증가하게 되었다. 이러한 대형 할인매장에서 쇼핑방법은 소비자에게 많은 정신적, 육체적 어려움을 주고 있다. 이에 현재 대형 할인매장에서의 문제점을 해결할 수 있는 쇼핑 지원 로봇을 개발, 상용화 시켜 사용자의 원활한 생활 지원을 목적으로 하는 로봇의 디자인 개발을 위한 기초 연구이다. 본 연구에서는 소비자의 쇼핑 지원시 필요한 사용자의 행태 분석과 설문조사를 통해, 쇼핑 지원 로봇의 니즈를 분석 도출하여 쇼핑 지원 로봇의 디자인 개발 시 형태 디자인을 위한 가이드라인을 제안했다.

정보통신기술의 발달과 함께 학습자에게 재미와 흥미를 통한 즐거운 교육환경을 제공하고자 다양한 방법이 시도 되고 있다. 에듀테인먼트와 게임기반학습 등에서 게임이나 로봇과 같은 기술을 교육에 활용하는 것은 좋은 예이다. 본 연구에서는 휴머노이드 로봇의 율동 생성을 위한 사용자 데이터 수집과 분석을 통한 지능형 율동 교육 시스템을 제안한다. 이를 위하여 사용자는 음악을 선택하고, 선택한 음악에 따라 율동 정보를 입력한다. 이러한 사용자의 로봇 활용 데이터는 분석을 통하여 지능화된 서비스를 위한 패턴의 역할을 한다. 분석 결과는 빈도에 기반을 두며, 과거 정보가 부족한 경우 FFT 유사도 비교 방법을 적용하였다. 제안하는 방법은 유치원 아이들을 대상으로 하는 실험을 통하여 유효함을 확인하였다.

In ubiquitous computing environments, users want to receive the robot services regardless of various physical status or devices such as time, place, various sensors, and high-performance servers. Thus, the ubiquitous service robots have to provide users with automated services according to situational information that they properly recognize. Beyond these problems, robot software has to establish a foundation to support the functions with the network infrastructure that are not able to be solved by a single independent resource. On the basis of a robot middleware that is capable of minimizing dependencies among hierarchy structures, the robot software also has to provide execution environment to control the flow of robot application services. In this paper, we propose a layered architecture to provide users with automated services through ubiquitous robots. The proposed architecture is based on CAWL (Context-Aware Workflow Language) and RSEL (Robot Services Execution Language). CAWL easily represents the flow of robot services from user application service levels, and RSEL is able to support the composition and reusability of robot services through abstraction of robot device services. In our experiments, we applied the proposed architecture to an example of “booth guide robot service.”

The human-following is one of the significant procedure in human-friendly navigation of mobile robots. There are many approaches of human-following technology. Many approaches have adopted various multiple sensors such as vision system and Laser Range Finder (LRF). In this paper, we propose detection and tracking approaches for human legs by the use of a single LRF. We extract four simple attributes of human legs. To define the boundary of extracted attributes mathematically, we used a Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) scheme. We establish an efficient leg-tracking scheme by exploiting a human walking model to achieve robust tracking under occlusions. The proposed approaches were successfully verified through various experiments.

In a large scale robot system, one of important problems is software integration, which involves three elements: modularity, reusability and stability. By these issues, the degree of convenience of system integration, its required time and the performance of the system stability can be determined. In addition, the convenience of system management can be determined by the degree of completion of service components. This paper explains the template based service component (TBSC) for the integration of service components in networked robot. The important characteristics of TBSC are automatical execution and recovery process by a PnP supporting robot framework, which helps a system operator to manage a robot system comfortably. For easy implementation and system stability, we provide a service component creator and a verification tool to developers.

A URC, which is a Ubiquitous Robot Companion, provides services to users in ubiquitous computing environments and has advantage of simplifying robot's hardware and software by distributing the complicated functionality of robots to other system. In this paper, we propose SOWL, which is a software architecture for URC robots and a mixed word of SOMAR and CAWL. SOWL keeps the advantages of URC and it also has the loosely-coupled characteristics. Moreover it makes it easy to develop of URC robot software. The proposed architecture is composed of 4 layers: device software, robot software, robot application, and end user layer. Developers of the each layer is able to build software suitable for their requirements by combining software modules in the lower layer. SOWL consists of SOMAR and CAWL engine. SOMAR, which is a middleware for the execution of device software and robot software, is based on service-oriented architecture(SOA) for robot software. CAWL engine is a system to process CAWL which is a context-aware workflow language. SOWL is able to provide a layered architecture for the execution of a robot software. It also makes it possible for developers of the each layer to build module-based robot software.

This paper presents the system design and implementation of ‘Mon-e’, the KT’s edutainment robot for young children. We paid our special attention to the computer- illiterate young children, and the provision of the physical and friendly human interface of robots. Specifically, the paper focuses on the video telephony and home monitoring service using the Mon-e robot. RFID cards –based calling makes it possible for the computer-illiterate children to make a phone call to their parents. The SIP and DTMF based remote control of the robot enables the search and track of the children. This experimental development shows the potentialities and values of the convergence service of telecommunication and robotics

This paper describes how a person extracts a unknown object with pointing gesture while interacting with a robot. Using a stereo vision sensor, our proposed method consists of two stages: the detection of the operators' face, the estimation of the pointing direction, and the extraction of the pointed object. The operator's face is recognized by using the Haar-like features. And then we estimate the 3D pointing direction from the shoulder-to-hand line. Finally, we segment an unknown object from 3D point clouds in estimated region of interest. On the basis of this proposed method, we implemented an object registration system with our mobile robot and obtained reliable experimental results.

The development of IT technology makes the functions and services of robots be integrated, and thus the robots become more intelligent and useful. As sophisticated usage of robots has evolved, direct communication by human language is necessary to increase the efficiency of their usage. In this paper, we propose a conversational interface platform for integrated service robots using MS Robotics Studio. The proposed platform consists of three types of components: a conversation manager to control the flows of the integrated service robots, a user interface to interact with users, and multiple service robots to perform actions or services. For a test-bed of the proposed platform, we build a schedule manager system and confirm the usability through SUS subject test by comparing the schedule manager system with MS Outlook.

Reliable functionalities for autonomous navigation and object recognition/handling are key technologies to service robots for executing useful services in human environments. A considerable amount of research has been conducted to make the service robot perform these operations with its own sensors, actuators and a knowledge database. With all heavy sensors, actuators and a database, the robot could have performed the given tasks in a limited environment or showed the limited capabilities in a natural environment. With the new paradigms on robot technologies, we attempted to apply smart environments technologies-such as RFID, sensor network and wireless network- to robot functionalities for executing reliable services. In this paper, we introduce concepts of proposed smart environments based robot navigation and object recognition/handling method and present results on robot services. Even though our methods are different from existing robot technologies, successful implementation result on real applications shows the effectiveness of our approaches. Keywords:Smart Environments, Service Robot, Navigation

This paper introduces a prototype smart home environment that is built in the research building to demonstrate the feasibility of a robot-assisted future home environment. Localization, navigation, object recognition and handling are core functionalities that an intelligent service robot should provide. A huge amount of research effort has been made to make the service robot perform these functions with its own sensors, actuators and a knowledge base. With all complicated configuration of sensors, actuators and a database, the robot could only perform the given tasks in a predefined environment or show the limited capabilities in a natural environment. We started a smart home environment for service robots for simple service robots to provide reliable services by communicating with the environment through the wireless sensor networks. In this paper, we introduce various types of smart devices that are developed for assisting the robot in the environment by providing sensor and actuator capabilities. In addition, we present how the devices are integrated to constitute the smart home environment for service robots.

Emotion interaction between human and robot is an important element for natural interaction especially for service robot. We propose a hybrid emotion generation architecture and detailed design of reactive process in the architecture based on insight about human emotion system. Reactive emotion generation is to increase task performance and believability of the service robot. Experiment result shows that it seems possible for the reactive process to function for those purposes, and reciprocal interaction between different layers is important for proper functioning of robot’s emotion generation system.

Abstract This paper presents a speaker recognition system intended for use in human-robot interaction. The proposed speaker recognition system can achieve significantly high performance in the Ubiquitous Robot Companion (URC) environment. The URC concept is a scenario in which a robot is connected to a server through a broadband connection allowing functions to be performed on the server side, thereby minimizing the stand-alone function significantly and reducing the robot client cost. Instead of giving a robot (client) on-board cognitive capabilities, the sensing and processing work are outsourced to a central computer (server) connected to the high-speed Internet, with only the moving capability provided by the robot. Our aim is to enhance human-robot interaction by increasing the performance of speaker recognition with multiple microphones on the robot side in adverse distant-talking environments. Our speaker recognizer provides the URC project with a basic interface for human-robot interaction.

지능형 서비스 로봇은 인공지능 및 센서인터페이스 등의 다양한 기능과 IT기술의 접목으로 우리의 생활을 윤택하게 해줄 수 있는 인간 지향적인 성격으로 발전하고 있다. 또한 많은 분야에서 새로운 서비스 개발을 통해서 좀더 인간의 생활에 가까이 접근되어 지고 있다. 한편 국내 초등학교에서 초등교사는 학생 수의 과다로 능동적이기 보다는 수동적인 수업을 하고 있어서 학습 효율성이나 능률성이 떨어지고 있다. 이에 본 연구에서는 발전하고 있는 서비스 로봇 기술로 능