A playmate robot system for playing the rock-paper-scissors game with humans

We have developed a playmate robot system for playing the rock-paper-scissors game with humans. The playmate robot recognizes the hand motions of a human using image processing without attaching any additional units to the human. The playmate robot system consists of three parts: a game management part, a hand motion recognition part, and a robot hand control part. The system functions as follows. (1) Before the game is played, the game management part decides on the motion of the robot hand from amongst rock, paper, and scissors. After the game is played, the robot develops a reaction using speech and facial expressions depending on the result of the game. (2) The hand motion recognition part recognizes the hand motion of the human. It does not use any additional units on the human’s body, only a camera on the robot. (3) The robot hand control part shows the motion of the robot hand. A robot hand has four fingers that are controlled independently. We have played the rock-paper-scissors game with this playmate robot.