Member of AIWS Standards and Practice Committee, Michael Dukakis Institute
Director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Department of Systems Innovation, Osaka University
Hiroshi Ishiguro is Director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan.
Hiroshi Ishiguro studied undergraduate Computer Science at the University of Yamanashi and later received a D.Eng. in Systems Engineering from Osaka University in 1991. Following graduation he began working as a research assistant in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Yamanashi. In 1992 he moved to the Department of Systems Engineering at Osaka University. In 1994 he became an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Science at Kyoto University where he began research in distributed vision using omnidirectional cameras. From 1998 to 1999 he served as a visiting scholar at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and in 1999 as a visiting researcher at ATR Media Information Science Laboratories developing interactive humanoid robots, such as Robovie. In 2000 he transferred to the Department of Computer and Communication Sciences as an associate professor at Wakayama University, later becoming a full professor in 2001 before moving back to Osaka. He is currently a professor of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University (2009-), and group leader of the Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratory at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication laboratories (2011-) and ATR fellow. His current research interests include interactive robots, android robots and perceptual information infrastructure. His contributions to the field of robotics include, publishing more than 300 papers in major journals and conferences, such as Robotics Research and IEEE PAMI, and the development of several humanoids and androids (e.g. Robovie, Repliee, Geminoid, Telenoid, Elfoid, etc.)
In this interview, Ishiguro discusses his career and his accomplishments in the field of robotics. Outlining his various research projects (SLAM, Geminoid, Robovie, etc.) he then comments on the influences of theater and art on his work in humanoid and interactive robotics. He recounts the developments and challenges which arose during his research, such as Android Science and the difficulty of creating a human-like appearance, and reflects on the future challenges and applications of robotics.
