A Low-Cost HumanoidRobotwithHumanGestures Imitation Capabilities

Sales ofentertainment robots areprimedtoex- plodeinthenextfewyears. Gesture imitation fromahuman operator demonstration isconsidered a promising technique thatallows unexperienced users toeasily interact witharobotic platform. Inthis paperaProgramming byDemonstration system fora humanoid robot isproposed. Therobot isaRobosapien V2toy whichisprogrammed toobserve andimitate humangestures. Thesystemcombines inputs frommultiple sensory devices, including adataglove, amotion tracker andamonocular vision system. Intheproposed imitation approach thesensordata aremappedtothejoint spaceoftherobot. Eventhough the performance oftherobotisconstrained bythekinematic and dynamic limitations ofRSV2andbythesensor inaccuracies, experiments involving simple gesture imitation ofanuntrained usershowtheviability andeffectiveness ofthemethod.