Futuristic Human-Robot Communication Yuki Nakagawa and Noriaki Nakagawa RT Corporation Tokyo, Japan Abstract She has been commended for numerous significant contribu- tions in robotics from the Japanese Society of Artificial In- In the last few years, we have witnessed in Information telligence, the Japan Society for Fuzzy Technologies and In- Technologies that virtual communication over the network telligent Informatics and RoboCup Japan Open. She earned has become highly multi-modal, thus richer. In addition M.Sc. in System Engineering and B.E. in Measurement and to the online chat and short text messaging (SMS), video Control Engineering from Hosei University, Japan. and audio have become common and well integrated in or- Noriaki Nakagawa is the lead engineer of RT Corpora- der to realize the richness. In communication and interac- tion, responsible for design and implementation of RIC 90. tions among humans and robots, such richness are still rare He earned M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and B.E. in Me- despite its high potential. We are currently studying this chanical Engineering from Daido University, Japan. throughout relevant technology development as the new, fu- turistic style of communication among humans and robots. Almost all the robots that we see at factory or home Contact Information are controlled based on positions. When shifting the con- Address: 3F, 3-2-13 Sotokanda, Chiyodaku 101-0021, trol paradigm from position to force, robots are said to in- Tokyo, Japan crease intelligence and flexibility in their movement and TEL: +81-3-6666-2566 tasks. However, this control paradigm shift has brought up FAX: +81-3-5809-5738 two technical challenges: loss of accuracy and certainty of E-mail: nakagawa@rt-net.jp, n.nakagawa@rt-net.jp repeatability. We are currently in search of alternatives, in- cluding Artificial Intelligence that has been proved effective in ambiguous and uncertain situation. We will introduce the futuristic style of communica- tion among humans and robots and advances of the con- trol paradigm shift in this lecture. We then promote discus- sions in many different aspects about the futuristic human- robot communication throughout the hands-on demonstra- tion of the touch-force-controlled robot arm, so-called ”NEKONOTE”, and attached sensing devices. Short Bio. Yuki Nakagawa, the CEO of RT Corporation headquartered in the center of ’Akihabara Electric Town’, Tokyo, Japan, is a well established specialist in robotics. She has developed various intelligent robots such as autonomous and collab- orative mobile robots for the RoboCup small robot soccer league and the cutting-edge humanoid robot RIC 90. Prior to her venture at RT Corporation, she participated as a re- searcher in the Kitano Symbiotic System Research Project, that is a part of the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology program within the Japan Science and Technol- ogy Agency. She also served as a lead curator at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and an as- sistant professor at the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology.