Development of remote class support system and field trial using an android robot

Android robots that have a human-like appearance have been developed recently. The purpose of android robots is to realize natural communication between human and robot by implementing human-like behaviors. In human communication, since it is said that facial expressions contribute to face-to-face communication effectively as a nonverbal medium, we have been developing the face robot that has human-like appearance and is able to express various facial expressions like human beings. Moreover we have been developing an android type communication robot equipped with the face robot. This paper shows an application of the android robot that we developed in educational field as a remote class support system. In this system, the android robot can observe student's behavior and utterance in seatwork. Furthermore it is able to call student's name, make eye contact and encourage or warn the student with utterance and facial expressions by teleoperation. We carried out the field trial at an elementary school to verify the effectiveness of this system by comparing to the case of using only a speaker. As a result, we confirmed the positive effects and possibility of this system in educational applications. We believe that this system also can be applied to other remote communication systems like a remote diagnosis.