Control of Soap Bubble Ejection Robot Using Facial Expressions

Author(s):  
Naoya Hasegawa ◽  
Yoshihiko Takahashi

This research has developed a soap bubble ejection robot as an amusement system that reads emotions from human facial expressions and controls the ejection of soap bubbles to improve human-robot interaction. A subject's response to soap bubble ejection is read by a built-in face recognition sensor which sends data to a control system which in turn controls the next ejection. Soap bubbles are often used to research children's emotions/emotional responses. First, evaluation experiments of the control system were performed using face photographs that show human emotions. The experimental results revealed that soap bubbles were ejected in the case of indifference, and the ejection stopped in the case of joy. Through the experimental results, it was confirmed that the control system worked properly when face photographs were used and also verified the effectiveness of the facial recognition sensor. Secondly, evaluation experiments were conducted with an actual human, and it was confirmed from the results that the control system operates as designed.

Author(s):  
Vignesh Prasad ◽  
Ruth Stock-Homburg ◽  
Jan Peters

AbstractFor some years now, the use of social, anthropomorphic robots in various situations has been on the rise. These are robots developed to interact with humans and are equipped with corresponding extremities. They already support human users in various industries, such as retail, gastronomy, hotels, education and healthcare. During such Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) scenarios, physical touch plays a central role in the various applications of social robots as interactive non-verbal behaviour is a key factor in making the interaction more natural. Shaking hands is a simple, natural interaction used commonly in many social contexts and is seen as a symbol of greeting, farewell and congratulations. In this paper, we take a look at the existing state of Human-Robot Handshaking research, categorise the works based on their focus areas, draw out the major findings of these areas while analysing their pitfalls. We mainly see that some form of synchronisation exists during the different phases of the interaction. In addition to this, we also find that additional factors like gaze, voice facial expressions etc. can affect the perception of a robotic handshake and that internal factors like personality and mood can affect the way in which handshaking behaviours are executed by humans. Based on the findings and insights, we finally discuss possible ways forward for research on such physically interactive behaviours.


Robotics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 68
Author(s):  
Lei Shi ◽  
Cosmin Copot ◽  
Steve Vanlanduit

In gaze-based Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), it is important to determine human visual intention for interacting with robots. One typical HRI interaction scenario is that a human selects an object by gaze and a robotic manipulator will pick up the object. In this work, we propose an approach, GazeEMD, that can be used to detect whether a human is looking at an object for HRI application. We use Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD) to measure the similarity between the hypothetical gazes at objects and the actual gazes. Then, the similarity score is used to determine if the human visual intention is on the object. We compare our approach with a fixation-based method and HitScan with a run length in the scenario of selecting daily objects by gaze. Our experimental results indicate that the GazeEMD approach has higher accuracy and is more robust to noises than the other approaches. Hence, the users can lessen cognitive load by using our approach in the real-world HRI scenario.


Author(s):  
Shiyang Dong ◽  
Takafumi Matsumaru

AbstractThis paper shows a novel walking training system for foot-eye coordination. To design customizable trajectories for different users conveniently in walking training, a new system which can track and record the actual walking trajectories by a tutor and can use these trajectories for the walking training by a trainee is developed. We set the four items as its human-robot interaction design concept: feedback, synchronization, ingenuity and adaptability. A foot model is proposed to define the position and direction of a foot. The errors in the detection method used in the system are less than 40 mm in position and 15 deg in direction. On this basis, three parts are structured to achieve the system functions: Trajectory Designer, Trajectory Viewer and Mobile Walking Trainer. According to the experimental results,we have confirmed the systemworks as intended and designed such that the steps recorded in Trajectory Designer could be used successfully as the footmarks projected in Mobile Walking Trainer and foot-eye coordination training would be conducted smoothly.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (19) ◽  
pp. 6438
Author(s):  
Chiara Filippini ◽  
David Perpetuini ◽  
Daniela Cardone ◽  
Arcangelo Merla

An intriguing challenge in the human–robot interaction field is the prospect of endowing robots with emotional intelligence to make the interaction more genuine, intuitive, and natural. A crucial aspect in achieving this goal is the robot’s capability to infer and interpret human emotions. Thanks to its design and open programming platform, the NAO humanoid robot is one of the most widely used agents for human interaction. As with person-to-person communication, facial expressions are the privileged channel for recognizing the interlocutor’s emotional expressions. Although NAO is equipped with a facial expression recognition module, specific use cases may require additional features and affective computing capabilities that are not currently available. This study proposes a highly accurate convolutional-neural-network-based facial expression recognition model that is able to further enhance the NAO robot’ awareness of human facial expressions and provide the robot with an interlocutor’s arousal level detection capability. Indeed, the model tested during human–robot interactions was 91% and 90% accurate in recognizing happy and sad facial expressions, respectively; 75% accurate in recognizing surprised and scared expressions; and less accurate in recognizing neutral and angry expressions. Finally, the model was successfully integrated into the NAO SDK, thus allowing for high-performing facial expression classification with an inference time of 0.34 ± 0.04 s.


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