Botson: An Accessible and Low-Cost Platform for Social Robotics Research

arXiv (Cornell University) 2026 Preprint Open access

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Authors: Samuel Bellaire, Abdalmalek Abu-raddaha, Natalie S. Kim, Nathan Morhan, William Elliott, Samir A. Rawashdeh
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2602.19491
Cited by: 0

Abstract

Trust remains a critical barrier to the effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into human-centric domains. Disembodied agents, such as voice assistants, often fail to establish trust due to their inability to convey non-verbal social cues. This paper introduces the architecture of Botson: an anthropomorphic social robot powered by a large language model (LLM). Botson was created as a low-cost and accessible platform for social robotics research.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Social Robot Interaction and HRI Speech and dialogue systems AI in Service Interactions

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
23 February 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint