R3D3: The Rolling Receptionist Robot with Double Dutch Dialogue

We discuss the design of R3D3, a rolling receptionist robot with the ability to conduct 'double Dutch dialogues': dialogues (in Dutch) that involve, besides a human user, both a robot and a virtual human. R3D3 is intended to assist people when they visit shops, museums, or other establishments by acting as a host or receptionist. In the R3D3 project, we investigate how users can interact with the robot through natural language and nonverbal behaviour. R3D3 uses computer vision to determine user characteristics and combines this with automated speech recognition to analyse users' intentions. The robot and virtual human complement each other's affordances for verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Our preliminary studies have shown that `double Dutch dialogues' require careful attention management through verbal and nonverbal behaviours by the robot and the virtual human, and that a receptionist robot should take the initiative in conversations to fulfil its intentions.