Ex-Amp Robot: Physical Avatar for Enhancing Human to Human Communication

Abstract

Our research focuses on creating a robotic system that aids human-to-human communication. The robot acts as a personal companion that understands the user's emotions and helps express them alongside the user. First, the user's facial expression is detected through a connected camera device and relays the retrieved information to a humanoid robot. The humanoid robot then performs physical gestures that match the detected emotion. By using this system, those who are unable to freely move their own bodies can add a physical component to their communication method. In this paper, we have determined the efficacy of translating detected facial expressions into robot movements. Through experiments and surveys, we determined whether our proposed 'Ex-Amp Robot' helped enhance the communication of a hypothetically tetraplegic user.