First sociable robot is wired to smile
February 18, 2003 Edition -1
Steve Connor
Denver - The world's most sophisticated cyborg, which can grin with self-satisfaction or sneer in disdain, has at last been unveiled.
Packed with 24 small motors to manipulate the artificial skin of its face, the cyborg - called K-bot - has a pair of cameras in its eyes designed to analyse the facial expressions of the people it sees.
James Hanson, a researcher at the University of Texas at Dallas, said K-bot has a library of 28 facial expressions and can mimic the entire array of human emotions as expressed by the facial muscles.
"In terms of complexity of the parts and expense incurred, K-bot is not the most expensive in the world. But in terms of the sophistication of what it is capable of doing, it is the most advanced," Hanson told the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sunday.
"It has the most expressive skin - it's a polymer developed in my laboratory - and has a compressibility comparable with human skin. It also has a high elongation, which means it stretches very easily."
The human face had evolved over millions of year to convey information. Even newborn babies were capable of perceiving emotion by looking at a face. It made sense to make robots with facial expressions comparable to those of humans, Hanson said.
"This is the face for sociable robotics. Whether you use the human face directly or imitate the expressions of the human face and use cartoon characters or fuzzy animals, one way or another, people will recognise it socially through facial expressions.
"In terms of robotics it has never existed before in a robot, so this is the first robot to use that leading-edge technology," he explained.
K-bot's face, which is modelled on that of Kristen Nelson, an artist and friend of Hanson's, was designed by analysing the movements of the muscles that control the facial movements of humans.
Scientists intend to develop emotion-expressing robots as an aid to teaching.
"This could become an extremely useful tool for medical therapies at some stage," Hanson said.
"If someone has brain damage or autism and you're trying to train them to be able to interact in a natural way, then this machine can present a very simple and codified version of non-verbal interaction that would be much easier for them to understand." - Independent Foreign Service
