Emotional Entrainment Enhancement Using an Active Display Interface

Tele-presence robots enable video calls easier and more engaging with the combination of tablet tools’ usability and web-controlled mobile functions. The lack of tele-presence issue has been significantly reduced by the idea of these robots. However, the lack of feeling for relationship with the person or with the robot is still an open issue. This study proposes an idea of remote individuals’ connection through an active display systems called ARM-COMS: ARm-supported eMbodied COmmunication Monitor System and tackles these issues. ARM-COMS is composed of a tablet PC and a desktop-type robotic arm. ARM-COMS is based on the two types of modes, or intelligent tablet mode (IT-mode) and intelligent avatar mode (IA-mode). Under these modes, ARM-COMS has three types of functions; namely, autonomous positioning (AP), autonomous entrainment movement (AEM), and autonomous entrainment positioning (AEP). This paper presents the basic concept of ARM-COMS and overviews the active display interface of ARM-COMS to accelerate the emotional entrainment in remote communication.