System Architecture and Hardware Design of a Dog-type Robot for Children Reading Activities

In this study, a robot system has been developed to systematically and effectively support reading activities for children and adolescent users. The robot interacts with users by grasping the user’s emotions through the user’s voice, image, and touch. A total of 8 emotional expressions are designed based on actual dogs’ behavior patterns to implement interaction with users. We design the hardware that can perform various emotional expressions based on language/emotion models with high degrees of freedom. The entire robot system is designed to implement complex emotional expressions through mechanical design and display while designing a high-spec controller module to process multiple communications, sensing, and graphic control in real time. In addition, an integrated sensor module is designed to enable analysis of various contact-type interactions of users. The interaction with the robot for the language/emotion model defined by the designed complex sensor/communication-based interface and the degree of freedom of control is discussed.