Repliee Q2 is an upgraded version of Repliee Q1. The face of Repliee Q2 has become more humanlike. Furthermore, it has 13 DoFs in the head so that it can make some facial expressions and mouth shapes. We have shown Repliee Q2 with the name of Repliee Q1expo at the World Expo held in Aichi, Japan in June, 2005. In the demonstrations, Repliee Q1expo interacted with people by impersonating a tv interviewer. Repliee Q1expo had omnidirectional cameras and microphones surrounding her and tactile sensors embedded under a carpet and could recognize a person's gestures, voice, and standing position.

Natural communication with humans in everyday situations is one of the most important functions of humanoid robots. We think that humanlike appearance and motion are very important. A humanoid robot which has these qualities is called "an android".

An android needs to possess the same motion mechanisms as a human to perform humanlike motion. If an android has such mechanisms, however, it is difficult to balance with humanlike appearance. We developed Repliee Q1 in collaboration with KOKORO, Inc. Repliee Q1 has a humanlike appearance and 31 degrees of freedom in the upper body, so the android is able to reproduce humanlike motion. Repliee Q1 Expo has been upgraded to 41 degrees of freedom, allowing for a greater number of humanlike motions. All of the joints are controlled by air actuators. An air actuator has a damping characteristic, so we can control the android softly without compliance control.

Appearance and motion are important to the impression a robot makes on people during communication between humans and robots. When using existing robots it is hard to measure whether appearance or motion is more important. However, using a robot with humanlike appearance, we can research the effect of motion alone, and then we can also research the effect of appearance.

• This android has 9 degree of freedom in her head. She can move her eyes, eyelids, mouth, and neck.
• Its body is covered with silicone, so the skin feels humanlike.
• And it has 4 high sensitivity skin sensors under the skin.

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.

Appropriate teleoperation methods
It is necessary to study the method to tele-operate an android in order to convey “presence”, which is quite different with traditional teleoperation for mobile robots and industrial robots. We will study a method to autonomously control an android by transferring a motion of an operator measured by a motion capturing system. Also, a method to autonomously control eye-gaze and small motion will be investigated.

Natural behavior production matched with speech utterances on teleoperation
We will investigate how to produce natural behaviors during speech utterances, in order to transmit “presence” by tele-operation of an android. Besides the information transmitted by words during speech utterances, we will study the effects on non-verbal communication, by investigating not only synchronization of speech and lip movements, but also the effects of facial expressions, head and even the whole body movements.

Understanding and transmitting Human Presence
We will investigate the effect of transmitting “Sonzai-Kan” from a remote place, such as participating to a meeting instead of the person himself. Moreover, we will investigate “what is presence” through experiments. For example, we will study whether the android can represent authority of the person himself, by comparing the person himself and the android.