Interaction design

Philip has been working for some time on the Icat, a robot that mimics facial expressions and talks to its users. It is an indication of how future products will look like and what their capabilities are. At this moment the Icat is still under development and can only do simple tasks such as setting your alarm clock or give information about television programs.

Why a cat?

So why did Philips choose for a cat and not a human face? Most of use know the theory of the uncanny valley. It proposes that people feel uncomfortable or even afraid if robots look to similar to humans, both visually but also in the way they behave. So they chose an animal that is fairly innocent, but it could have been a dog as well, but then the Aibo was already on the market.

Limitations

Existing limitations of the cat as with many other products is the speech recognition. To convert everything from speech correctly is still not possible, although improvements are continuously made. People differ a lot in the way the pronounce words, pitch, volume and speed. This can be clearly seen in the videos of the Icat with user tests. The Icat and subject seem to communicate well, but this is only because the subject is using short answers like ‘yes’ and her ‘name’.

Video – Icat as a game buddy

Video – Icat game buddy with different personalities

It is clear that both designing facial gestures, speech and movements together is a tedious job. Not only is it difficult to align the factors, more is needed to have a natural interaction with a robot. In the following video you see that the Icat only recognizes several actions and although this goes not too bad it is not a real conversation. Often the user is speaking while the Icat is (impolitely) speaks as well. The processing of the speech is likely the problem of this. The user is struggling and repeating many texts too make himself understandable.

Video – Icat user test with Dutch elderly. It is in Dutch but you should be able to understand the principle.

Future possibillities

It is not fair to judge the Icat on its existing performance, as this is a complex job. But if speech recognition gets further developed and is reliable we defenitely see many applications. It could help people remember their appointments, or help to take your medicine. With reliable speech recognition and good programming almost for every application a robot can be used.

Check the full episode of Robolove (in Dutch) or visit the Philips Icat portal