Friendship estimation model for social robots to understand human relationships

This work reports the friendship estimation model we designed for social robots that understand human social relationships. Our interactive robot autonomously interacts with humans with its human-like body properties, and as a result, induces the humans' friendly group behavior upon direct interaction. Based on these features, as well as inspired by a survey in psychology research on friendship, we propose a friendship estimation model for an interactive robot. The capability provided by such a model is probably essential for interactive robots to establish social relationships with humans. The results of an experiment demonstrate that the fundamental part of the estimation model functions effectively.