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Human-Robot Interaction Lab
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Building human-like robots that live alongside people.
AboutAbout the lab
Toward a society where robots and people live together
The Human-Robot Interaction Lab continues to produce world-leading results in research on how people and robots relate to each other (HRI).
The lab takes the broad view that any agent acting in physical space is a “robot,” and aims to realize “human-like robots” that coexist and cooperate with people.
The lab conducts basic research in intelligent robotics, interaction, sensor networks, and artificial intelligence.
It connects this work to applications in the service industry, elderly support, learning support, and healthcare.
Key terms
- Human-robot interaction
- A field that studies how people and robots interact and relate to each other. Also called HRI
- Sensor network
- A mechanism that connects many sensors to measure the state of people and the environment over a wide area
- Field experiment
- An experiment conducted not in a laboratory setting but in real places of daily life, such as schools and shops
NewsLab news
A paper, including research on a robot sales clerk learning sales negotiation, was published in ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction
A paper was accepted at the international conference HRI2026
ResearchResearch themes
Toward a “robot society,” the lab studies robots that are useful in everyday society. Its work covers sensor networks, interaction technology, field experiments, and cyber-physical systems.
*Illustrative imageCapturing people's everyday behavior
The lab studies sensor network technology that models and understands people's everyday behavior. It recognizes social behavior with deep learning and extracts meaningful information from one year of movement data collected in a shopping mall.
*Illustrative imageGiving robots “human-likeness”
The lab is developing models that reproduce in robots the “human-likeness” found in behavior, such as gaze, pointing, timing, positioning, and how to address people. It has realized robots that give directions based on an understanding of the environment like a person's, and that walk side by side with people.
*Illustrative imageThe relationship between people and “human-like robots”
The lab runs field experiments in elementary schools, science museums, shopping malls, and day care centers to study how people and robots interact. It has found that robots are becoming a new kind of social being, neither human nor machine.
*Illustrative imageSystems that predict human behavior
The lab studies cyber-physical systems that reproduce people's behavior on a computer and predict their behavior one step ahead. Using these predictions, it has been able to avoid crowds of people swarming around a robot and “robot bullying.”
MembersFaculty
The faculty of the Human-Robot Interaction Lab are a Professor, an Associate Professor, a Program-Specific Associate Professor, and an Assistant Professor.
- ProfessorTakayuki Kanda
- Associate ProfessorBRSCIC Drazen
- Program-Specific Associate ProfessorEVEN Jani
- Program-Specific Associate ProfessorSEO Stela Hanbyeol
- Assistant ProfessorKanae Kochigami
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Telenoid™ R4 (tele-presence robot for communication) by ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory, exhibited at Miraikan ( by Franklin Heijnen)” Franklin Heijnen / CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)
- Capturing people's everyday behavior: “2024 - photo of local people & children in front of the portal of shopping mall De Markthal in Rotterdam - urban street photography in free images and high resolutions by Dutch photographer Fons Heijnsbroek, The Netherlands” Fons Heijnsbroek / CC0 (cropped)
- Giving robots “human-likeness”: “Kaspar (android)” 384 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- The relationship between people and “human-like robots”: “Science Museum - Robots - Robot for autistic children ( )” Matt Brown from London, England / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Systems that predict human behavior: “Queen Street Mall crowd Queen Street Mall Brisbane P1300780” John Robert McPherson / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Agreement Informatics Lab): “Discussion Between National Consensus Commission And Nationalist Likeminded Alliance (PID-0002082)” Press Information Department / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Learning Machines Lab): “3d-printed-humanoid-robot-manav-mumbai-techfest-2015” Jasonprost / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Speech Media Lab): “Radio-frequency-anechoic-chamber-HDR-0a” Adamantios / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Visual Media Lab): “NadiaPiet -ArchivalImages of AI + AIxDESIGNLimitsof Classification -2560x1404” Nadia Piet & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
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