VILNIUS ACADEMY OF ARTS FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES PRODUCT DESIGN DEPARTMENT II YEAR MASTER DEGREE Inna Popa MASTER THESIS ROBOT’S APPEARANCE Theoretical part of work supervisor: Mantas Lesauskas Practical part of work supervisor: Šarūnas Šlektavičius Vilnius, 2016 CONTENTS Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 3 Problematics and actuality ...................................................................................................................... 3 Motives of research and innovation of the work .................................................................................... 3 The hypothesis ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Goal of the research ................................................................................................................................ 4 Object of research ................................................................................................................................... 4 Aims of Research ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Sources of research (books, images, robots, companies) ....................................................................... 5 Robots design .......................................................................................................................................... 8 History of robots...................................................................................................................................... 8 Robots in movies ................................................................................................................................... 15 Robots in cartoons ................................................................................................................................ 18 Tips and tricks used by robot designers ................................................................................................ 19 Design role in avoiding sense of revulsion of humanoid robots or Uncanny Valley .............................. 19 History of the Uncanny Valley ............................................................................................................... 19 Criticism of Uncanny Valley ................................................................................................................... 23 Speculation on Uncanny Valley ............................................................................................................. 24 Baby schema applied to robots ............................................................................................................. 27 Baby schema theory .............................................................................................................................. 27 Baby schema study: description and analysis ........................................................................................ 29 Areas of usage for robots ...................................................................................................................... 30 Analysis of robots behaviour and communication design. .................................................................... 32 MOTI: an implementation of a telepresence drone .............................................................................. 33 Introduction to the problem 34 Project aim description 35 Development process 36 moti's design 39 moti’S Physics 40 moti’S Structure 41 moti’S Composition: 42 Usage scenario 43 Compettitors 44 Advantages 44 Disadvantages 45 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 46 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 47 2 PREFACE PROBLEMATICS AND ACTUALITY In the last hundreds of years there were made such incredible technological breakthroughs that our society will not act, think and interact anymore the same way as before. Mass production of automobiles, radio, household appliances, television, cameras, nuclear technology, space travel, computer microprocessors and of course robotics are the examples of how science, design and engineering have changed the world around us. Robotics has the ability to change the face of the mass production in factories, medicine and healthcare institutions, the way we shop, deliver goods around the globe, and to society as a whole. In the near future, robots will move and take action based on their own decisions. In some environments, robots are already integrated into everyday life. As a designer, I recognise the possibility of expanding the integration of robots into our lives as safe, acceptable, and complimentary to human life. MOTIVES OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION OF THE WORK With lots of robots near us every day, what design principles are used to make this human-robot symbiosis as comfortable for us as possible? What will make robots truly become a part of our society? How to design a robot that will not scare people? What problems related to robots could be solved solely by design? How to design a safe robot? How to minimise the negative effects of robots emergence in our everyday lives? What moral aspects should a robot have? How should we design robot’s feedback in order to achieve the most comfortable human-robot interaction? How should people design a robot’s emotion or should we leave robots as rational machines stripped of any emotion? How to design a robot for which we will be able to feel empathy? 3 THE HYPOTHESIS My hypothesis is that through a user-friendly and balanced design supported by logical and intuitive interaction, I can create helpful robots that will be accepted by people and integrated into their everyday environment. / GOAL OF THE RESEARCH To examine the possibilities of introducing certain types of robots into residential environment, while identifying aspects of human life where robots can benefit the most. / OBJECT OF RESEARCH Since there is no exact definition for the word ‘robot’ that has been unequivocally accepted by public or on which scientists agree. By ‘robot’ in this thesis, therefore, I mean an electro-mechanical machine, that is guided by a computer program inside an electronic circuitry1 and has the ability to move by itself or to move any or some parts of its body. As exceptions, I will not discuss the design of smart washing machines, microwaves or other household appliances, because their design has developed from previous household electronic devices. For now, there is no big difference in approaches in design of a smart washer vs non-programmable washer machine. Also for similar reasons I will omit discussions on design of smart self-driving cars, laptops, computers and smart phones, which nowadays could be also seen as robots. The history of design of these devices has its own paths of development and with the appearance of a computer program inside making some of the decisions, it haven’t yet influenced the design of these mechanisms so strongly that it will be worth discussing. I will not mention the design of bots (like Siri, Cortana, Cleverbot by Google and all kinds of avatars in the nearest future), that even though have an interface, do not possess a physical body. Automatons on the other hand, have a body, but are pre-programmed for a short-term cycle of mechanical processes and they lack reactions to the real world changes. So I will also briefly mention them as pre-robot devices. 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot 4 Therefore, my main field of interest is robots with which humans interact the most. Robots whose design is intentionally made to provoke us to feel emotions, robots that are close to us in our everyday lives or will be in the near future. Robots in the real life are as important in terms of design, as robots from movies or cartoons, since it is a representation of an artistic vision of what robots should be capable of doing and how should they look like. It is also a source of inspiration for engineers and designers in the real world because art and other aspects of human life have always been integrated into a system of mutual influence. / AIMS OF RESEARCH 1. In order to study and understand how robots look like and how they looked like in the past. Shapes, materials, functions of the robots all influence our perception and the expected behaviour. 2. Examine areas of application in robotics and differences in the appearance of robots according to the environment in which they are used. My focus here will be on telepresence robots. 3. Analyse current trends and state-of-the-art used by designers to make robots look attractive and desirable for the end user. 4. Develop a product with these guidelines, tailored at a particular niche and aimed at solving a particular problem. / SOURCES OF RESEARCH Some of the design principles are shared by any design object or process, I could use books like ‘Universal Principles of Design’2 by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler, to define what design principles could be used for robots in particular. Other books, which could be useful for deeper understanding what emotional relationship is it possible to orchestrate between human and