CHARACTERISTIC BEHAVIOR IN FOLLOW-WALKING TO LEADING ROBOTS

In the near future, there will be several types of the leading robots that lead us a way to a destination in our daily life spaces. Some experiments were conducted in order to clarify the characters behaviors of human in follow-walking after leading robots in a real corridor. Following results were obtained. 1) The distance to the robots were kept in from 900 to 1100(mm). And 2) Subjects tended to gaze at the short size robot (300mm height) more frequently than the middle size one (600mm height). 3) When the leading speed is lower (0.34m/s), subjects tended to gaze at the short size robot (300mm height) more frequently than the tall size one (900mm height). 4) The characteristic fixation pattern was found that was gazing at the midair area above the head of the robots.