Development on face robot for real facial expressions

The goal of this study is to investigate the intelligence necessary for a machine such as a human-friendly robot working in an environment where humans and robots coexist. It seems to be required to manufacture a human-friendly robot that can communicate with human beings as a test bed or platform. Since face and facial expressions are crucial factors for communication, we have been developing a face robot which has a human-like face and can express facial expressions similar to human being. The important factors of the face robot for coexistence and communication with humans are: 1. human size and compactness; and 2. ease of control. While we have used air cylinders with pressurized air for the first-generation of face robot, to accomplish these two factors, we decided to use a SMA (shaped memory alloy) actuator driven by electricity and built the second-generation of face robot. Although we succeeded in making a human size face robot, it came to clear that the SMA does not have enough power and speed. To overcome these issues, we developed an air-tube-actuator driven by pressurized air and manufactured the third-generation of face robot. In the paper, we show how to build the third-generation of face robot and its basic ability.

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