The Robot Head “Flobi”: A Research Platform for Cognitive Interaction Technology Sven Wachsmuth, Simon Schulz, Florian Lier, Frederic Siepmann, and Ingo L¨ utkebohle Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, Universit¨ atsstr. 25, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany {swachsmu,sschulz,flier,fsiepmann,iluetkeb}@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de http://www.cit-ec.de Abstract. Founded on a vision of a human-friendly technology that adapts to users’ needs and is easy und intuitive for ordinary people to use, CITEC has established an exciting new field: Cognitive Interac- tion Technology. It aims to elucidate the principles and mechanisms of cognition in order to find ways of replicating them in technology and thus enable a new deep level of service and assistance. In order to pro- ceed in this highly interdisciplinary field, appropriate research platforms and infrastructure are needed. The anthropomorphic robot head “Flobi” combines state-of-the-art sensing functionality with an exterior that elic- its a sympathetic emotion response. In order to support several lines of research and at the same time ensure the maintainability of the software and hardware components, a virtual realization of the Flobi head has been proposed that allows an efficient prototyping, systematic testing, and software development in a continuous integration framework. Keywords: Human-Robot Interaction, Demonstrator Engineering 1 Introduction Classic AI is very much focussing on the modeling of a rational mind including agents that rationally react on environmental changes or human actions. Starting from these insights many systems have been constructed that show intelligent behavior and are intelligently interacting with humans. However, the general approach does not care if the behavior is realized in a text-based dialogue, a virtual character, or a physical robot – it concentrates on the modeling of the mind in the first place. The field of Cognitive Interaction Technology takes a different approach plac- ing the interaction that takes place in the physical world in the first place. If we understand how this interaction is shaped, what ascriptions and expectations between interlocutors are provoked by which factors, which processes initiate, maintain, and re-establish an interaction over time, then cognitive processes can 0 This work has been partially funded by the German Research Foundation (EC277). S. Wölfl (Ed.): Poster and Demo Track of the 35th German Conference on Artificial Intelligence (KI-2012), pp. 3-7, 2012. © The Authors, 2012