Research

With shifts in lifestyle and demographics, as well as advancements in artificial intelligence and communication technologies such as generative AI, the structure of human society continues to evolve. As a result, developing technologies that support the healthy social participation of all individuals, including those who are socially vulnerable, has become an urgent challenge.
A promising solution to this challenge is social robots—artificial agents that, as members of society, take on certain human roles with performance beyond human capabilities and contribute to the structure and sustainability of society. While the ability of robots to engage in conversations as individual entities has advanced rapidly, enabling robots to support individuals and serve as a bridge between people and society requires a more fundamental capability: human-like sociality—the ability to interact with people in social contexts.
To address this, our laboratory promotes research in social robotics. Specifically, we investigate the requirements for robots to be accepted as members of society and contribute to its structure and maintenance. We also explore the societal impacts of introducing social robots and examine how they can help solve various social issues.

Theme 02

Conversation Space that supprt human-human communicatoin

Face-to-face, one-on-one interaction is a fundamental form of human communication, but it is not always the optimal approach in every situation. In our laboratory, we leverage dialogue robot technology to create new interactive spaces where people can communicate in different ways and with different emotional states. This includes scenarios where robots act as intermediaries or where individuals converse through robotic embodiments, enabling novel forms of interaction beyond conventional face-to-face communication.

Theme 04

Development of Autonomous Intelligent Systems Based on Robot Learning

We are engaged in research and development of intelligent robots that can autonomously operate in the real world by deeply integrating machine learning and robotics. Through robot learning using imitation learning and large language models, we aim to acquire cognitive functions related to object manipulation, language understanding, and intention estimation, with the goal of creating autonomous systems that can naturally collaborate with humans.