FIPA

FOUNDATION FOR INTELLIGENT PHYSICAL AGENTS

Number : 005

Source : Kyoichi SHIMIZU, Kunio YAMADA and Toshihiro MARUYAMA(JVC)

The applications of Virtual-Personality(VP)

1. Virtual-Personality(VP)

Virtual-Personality is a kind of inner agents which act as man-terminal interface, and supports user assistant application. The difference from conventional man-machine interface is that VP is not only a tool for information exchange but has abilities to remind the user of something forgotten, give the user hints or suggestions for some actions, and recognize the user's emotions. These intelligent abilities of VP give more comfortable working environments by demonstrating its abilities which are appropriate for the occasions.

2. Applications of VP

The primary application of VP is user assistant application. Besides, several other applications are exemplified as follows.

(1) Business Applications

-Secretary-like assisting functionalities

-Collecting and presenting information depending on the user's necessity or liking(Internet, data base, electronic newspaper access, etc.)

-Providing TV or video program depending on the user's taste(TV, VOD, etc.)

-Sorting mails, scheduling management, answering telephone, etc.

(2) Home applications

-Controlling AV devices and other electric apparatuses(home automation) such as

background music selection, TV program reservation, controlling lights or airconditioners, warming bath water, etc.

-Cleaning, transportation, visitor reception, collecting information in the neighborhood, acting as a pet, etc. by autonomous robot with face, hands and legs

-Security (intercom, automatic forwarding of images from a monitoring camera)

3. Necessary Fuctionalities for Realizing the Applications

Following functionalities are needed to realize the applications mentioned above.

Functionalities to

(1) detect the presence of people

(2) identify the speaker

(3) recognize the voice

(4) identify the face

(5) synthesize voices

(6) synthesize faces

(7) control actuators

(8) judge by sensor fusion

(9) exchange messages with other sensor agents

(10)exchange messages with other executed agents

(11)control tele-existence

4. Items to Be Standardized

Specifications of VP standardization should not be too much technically detailed but global one to define functionalities. For man-machine interface, specifications to define the boundary of machine's acceptance for man's requirements is a matter of great importance. It is desirable that low-grade machines be subsets of acceptable commands of high-grade machines depending on the boundary. Following items are to be standardized.

(1) Ranked grade setting of vocabularies and vocabulary list for voice recognition

(2) Ranked grade setting of sensors and sensor list

(3) Ranked availability list for synthesized faces

(4) Inter-agent communication protocol and capacity

(5) Standard pattern for emotion recognition (dummy faces and voices)

(6) Number of dimensions for emotional information, allowable accuracy and limit

(7) Allowable accuracy of synthesis of emotions(faces and voices)

(8) Protocol and capacity for tele-existence information

(9) Ranked grade setting of actuators and actuator list

(10) Number of dimensions for actuators, allowable accuracy and limit

(11) Ranked grade setting of sensor fusion intelligent judgment and judgment list

(12) time for identification, recognition, drawing, operation and other responses