Realization of realistic and rich facial expressions by face robot

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate communication with an intelligent machine such as a human-friendly robot in an environment where human and robot coexist. The face and its expressions are crucial for communication, so we have developed a face robot, which has a human-like face and can express facial expressions similar to a human being. We used air cylinders with pressurized air for the Mark I face robot, which was 1.5, times bigger than human face. In order to realize human face size, we then decided to use electrical shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators to produce facial expressions (Mark II). We realized the human size face robot though; SMA did not have enough durability and power for expressing facial expressions. For mark II we then selected McKibben-type pneumatic actuator to display facial expressions. In this paper we show the history of the face robot we have developed, discuss how to build the face robot by using McKibben-type pneumatic actuator, and show the basic ability for expressing facial expressions.