David Hanson is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 robotics

Robotics

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...

 designer

Designer

A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...

 and researcher

Researcher

A researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...

, responsible for the creation of a series of realistic humanoid robots.

Biography

Dr. David Franklin Hanson, Jr., develops human-like robots with realistic facial expressions and conversational abilities [Hanson et al., 2006]. He received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and...

 in film/animation/video, while developing robots as art. Hanson later worked as a sculptor and a technical consultant at Walt Disney Imagineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas

University of Texas at Dallas

The University of Texas at Dallas, also referred to as UT Dallas or UTD, is a public research university in the University of Texas System. The main campus is in the heart of the Richardson, Texas, Telecom Corridor, north of downtown Dallas...

 in spring of 2007. Hanson currently serves as president and founder of Hanson Robotics.

Work

Hanson’s robots were shown first at the 2002 AAAI conference in Edmonton, Canada [Hanson, 2002] and in 2003, he showed the Kbot

KBOT

KBOT is a radio station licensed to Pelican Rapids, Minnesota that serves Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. The station is owned by Leighton Broadcasting...

 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association for the Advancement of Science

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...

 (AAAS) annual meeting [Ferber, 2003]. In 2005, Hanson and team received an AAAI award for their "intelligent conversational portrait" of Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

 [AI Magazine, Fall 2005]. First shown at the 2005 Nextfest, the robot incorporated thousands of pages of the writings of PKD, including journals and letters, into an LSA corpus and conversational system constructeandroid [Hanson et al., 2005].

In November 2005, Hanson demonstrated an expressive walking humanoid

Humanoid

A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human being. The term first appeared in 1912 to refer to fossils which were morphologically similar to, but not identical with, those of the human skeleton. Although this usage was common in the sciences for much of the 20th century, it...

, a portrait of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

, in collaboration with the KAIST

KAIST

KAIST , is located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first research oriented science and engineering institution. The QS-The Times World University Rankings in the year of 2009 placed KAIST 69th overall and 21st in...

 Hubo group of Korea. KAIST built the walking body, and Hanson built the head using a flexible rubber like skin material he has created called Frubber [WIRED, 2006].

Hanson has also designed and built a series of Conversational Character Robots. These have heads incorporating Frubber, with varying levels of facial mobility and expressiveness, and are capable of responding to human speech. Projects include Joey Chaos, Jules (created for University of West England in Bristol, UK) and Alice (created for MIRALab in Geneva, Switzerland).

Publications

• (with Mathews, E., Olney, A., Zielke, M., Pereira, A.) (2005). Upending the uncanny valley, in AAAI conference proceedings.
• “Expanding the Design Domain of Humanoid Robots”, Proc. ICCS CogSci Conference, special session on Android Science, Vancouver, 2006.
• (with Jun-Ho O., Han I. Y., Kim J. K., Kim, W. S., Park, I.W.) “Design of Android type Humanoid Robot Albert HUBO”, Proc. IEEE/RJS IROS Robotics Conference, Beijing, 2006.
• “Expanding the Aesthetics Possibilities for Humanlike Robots”, Proc. IEEE Humanoid Robotics Conference, special session on the Uncanny Valley; Tskuba, Japan, December 2005.
• (with Olney A., Prilliman S., Mathews E., Zielke M., Hammons D., Fernandez R., Stephanou H.) "Upending the Uncanny Valley”, Proc. AAAI's National Conference, Pittsburgh, 2005.
• (with White V.) “Converging the Capabilities of ElectroActive Polymer Artificial Muscles and the Requirements of Bio-inspired Robotics”, Proc. SPIE’s Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices Conf., 10TH Smart Structures and Materials Symposium, San Diego, USA, 2004.
• (with Rus D., Canvin S., Scmeirer G.) “Applications of Bio-inspired Robotics”, Ch.10 of Biologically Inspired Intelligent Robots. Bar-Cohen, Y and Breazeal, C. (Ed.) SPIE Press, May 2003.
• "EAP Actuator Design for Biologically-inspired Face-Based Communication Robots". Proc. SPIE’s Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Devices Conf., 9th Smart Structures and Materials Symposium, San Diego, USA, 2003.
• “Bio-inspired Facial Expression Interface for Emotive Robots”, Proc. AAAI National Conference in Edmonton, CA, 2002.

External links

• Hanson Robotics Home Page
• David Hanson's artwork
• Giving robots a human face
• A ubiquity interview with David Hanson
• Humanoid robots put best faces forward
• Scientists try to make robots more human
• http://www.ted.com/talks/david_hanson_robots_that_relate_to_you.htmlFive minute video of his 2009 talk at TED
  TED (conference)
  TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
  
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