Interactive Face Robot

Abstract

The interaction between humans and robots has increased and become more personalized in this century. Robots are being used in various fields such as medicine, manufacturing, automation, etc.; however, they lack the interaction capability that is found in a human mainly because more than 60% of human communication is non-verbal, and thus, is hard to replace him. This project presents an interactive face robot which is able to mimic the six universal human facial expressions: happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, anger, and disgust. It can interact with the user using speech recognition in order to mimic a career/major adviser. The Interactive Face Robot is made out of a rubber mask to simulate the skin. Facial expressions are created by moving muscle-like structures based on a facial mass-spring model. Nine servo motors move the different action units in the face to create the different expressions. The Interactive Face Robot mimics a career/major adviser using speech recognition software, the BitVoicer, which recognizes the user’s speech and communicates with a LabVIEWTM program that evaluates the answers and calculates the best career/major choice. The LabVIEWTM program, which runs on a laptop computer, also converts the pre-defined questions that the robot asks into voice, and communicates with an Arduino Mega the expression that the face is to generate. Using pulse-width modulation, the Arduino Mega controls the needed servo motors to create the necessary facial expression. The Interactive Face Robot has proven to be user-friendly, and interacted with humans as pre-programmed. Facial expressions provide robots with more capabilities for human-like interactions, making them more adequate for applications requiring interactions with humans. This Interactive Face Robot can replace a career/major adviser, and can be programmed as a receptionist, front-desk operator, or can be used in therapeutic applications. Keywords—HCI; Facial Expressions; Interactive Robot