ibuki -Breathing life-

“ibuki“ is a child-like android equipped with a moving unit. By acting with the human, having a conversation together and consequently sharing their experience, this robot is expected to become a conversational robot which is able to construct a deeper relationship with the human. With regards to the feasibility and the safety aspects, a set of wheels is adopted as its moving unit. The unit includes a pair of eccentricity wheels for horizontal body motion and a ball screw driven actuator for vertical body motion. This replicates the movement of a human’s center of gravity position on the android robot and expresses a human-like movement even with the wheels. Also, having 47 degrees of freedom enables it to have various emotional expressions such as gestures and hand signs, in addition to different facial expressions. ibuki photo album ©JST ERATO ISHIGURO Symbiotic Human-Robot Interaction Project