GEMINOID

OVERVIEW

Where does the feeling of one's presence, such as the atmosphere or the authority of a person come from? How can it be captured, revived, and transmitted? To tackle this mystery, we have developed a new real-person based android, “Geminoid”. A geminoid appears and behaves just like its source person. Also, it is tightly-connected with its original by information paths.

Research using androids requires various information on their "source": from their physical natures to social relationships, in detail. Thus, these topics were not possible to be conducted scientifically, and were only possible by pure thoughts in phylosophy. With Geminod, objective and quantitative study can now be conducted.

Since artificial intelligence technology has still not reached the level of adult mankind, robots can only respond in quite a simple manner. This was a major obstacle in conducting research on human-robot interaction. With Geminoid’s remote controlling facility, it is possible to avoid this problem, and conduct various researches toward the implementation on high-level human interaction, including the study on human presence.

Research with geminoids take two approaches: One is with the engineering approach, such as development of effective tele-operation interface or generation of natural, humanlike motion. Another is on cognitive aspects, for the investigation on human presence. Through these two approaches, our goal is to realize an advanced robot close to humankind, and at the same time, the quest for the basis of human nature.

For more details, please consult the following documents:　

Ishiguro, H., Geminoid - Teleoperated Android of an Existent Person - (PDF)

Nishio S., Ishiguro, H. and Hagita, N
Geminoid: Teleoperated Android of an Existing Person (external link)
in Humanoid Robots: New Developments, de Pina Filho, A.C. eds., I-Tech Education and Publishing, Vienna, Austria, 2007.