Abstract

Robotheads

Robot heads should be developed for an interactive gaming environment. The heads communicate with the player visually and acustically. The design is supposed to be as simple as possible, whereas the robot should be still accepted as a valid communication partner.

Headtracking

A simple headtracking should be designed to provide a basic head-computer interface.
The tracking system should recognize the movements of the head and calculate a value of intensity for the two typical human gestures nodding and shaking.

Description of the work that I am going to show in the exhibition

A human player will interact with a Robot Head. Head movements of the player will be recorded using optical tracking of a helmet. This will control two servos attached to a small TFT monitor with two degrees of freedom (pan and tilt).

Short statement about your work in robotics, what it means to you…

Communication between humans and machines are more and more important. In speech communication with a human partner we use head movements to emphasize the contents of our speech, for showing empathy and emotions. I will concentrate in my work on building a robot head that imitates the human head movements. Can communication be improved with this moving head feature ? Can the moving head be used for future installations, e.g. robotic musicians ?