The mechanical improvements of the anthropomorphic flutist robot WF-4RII to increas the sound clarity and to enhance the interactivity with humans

The development of the anthropomorphic flutist robot, at Waseda University, has focused on imitating the human flute playing by mechanically reproducing the organs involved during such activity. Our research aims in understanding several aspects of the human flute playing: clarifying the human motor control while performing skillful activities, enabling robots to express ideas and feelings in musical terms and proposing new ways of interaction between the human and the robot. In this paper the new version of the flutist robot, the Waseda Flutist Robot No. 4 Refined II, is presented. The improvements of the mechanical system in order to improve the sound clarity of the robot’s performance and to enhance the interaction with humans are described. A set of experiments were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the mechanical components. As a result, the robot is able of performing a musical score with more clarity and furthermore, the robot can interact with humans more natural using the vision system.

[1]  Massimo Bergamasco,et al.  The anthropomorphic flutist robot WF-4 teaching flute playing to beginner students , 2004, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004. Proceedings. ICRA '04. 2004.

[2]  Paul A. Viola,et al.  Rapid object detection using a boosted cascade of simple features , 2001, Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. CVPR 2001.

[3]  Tarek M. Sobh,et al.  Experimental Robot Musicians , 2003, J. Intell. Robotic Syst..

[4]  Atsuo Takanishi,et al.  Evaluation of Various Walking Patterns of Biped Humanoid Robot , 2005, Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[5]  Makoto Kajitani.  Development of Musician Robots , 1989, J. Robotics Mechatronics.

[6]  Gary R. Bradski,et al.  Real time face and object tracking as a component of a perceptual user interface , 1998, Proceedings Fourth IEEE Workshop on Applications of Computer Vision. WACV'98 (Cat. No.98EX201).

[7]  Akihiko Uchiyama,et al.  Information-Power Machine with Senses and Limbs , 1974 .

[8]  Atsuo Takanishi,et al.  The anthropomorphic flutist robot WF-4R: from mechanical to perceptual improvements , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[9]  André Doyon,et al.  Jacques Vaucanson, mécanicien de génie , 1967 .

[10]  Atsuo Takanishi,et al.  Development of a talking robot with vocal cords and lips having human-like biological structures , 2005, 2005 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.