Dance Partner Robot: An engineering approach to human-robot interaction

A Dance Partner Robot, PBDR (Partner Ball Room Dance Robot), dances a waltz as a female dancer together with a human male dancer. The waltz, a ball room dance, is usually performed by a male dancer and a female dancer, and consists of a certain number of steps, and transition of the steps. The dance is lead by the male dancer based on the transition rule of the dance. The female dance partner estimates the following step through physical interactions with the male dancer. The dance partner robot has a database about the waltz and its transition rule for estimating the following dance step and generating an appropriate step motion. The step estimation is done based on the time-series data of the force/torque applied by the male dancer to the robot upper body. The robot motion is generated for the estimated step using the step motion in the database compliantly against the interface force/moment between the human dancer and the robot in real time. The development of the dance partner robot has suggested us a lot of important issues for robots having interaction with a human. Why we are developing the dance partner robot and how the concept will be applied to other robot systems will be discussed in the presentation.