Development on face robot for real facial expressions

The goal of this study is to investigate the intelligence necessary for the machine such as a human-friendly robot working in the environment where human and robot coexist. It seems to be required to manufacture the human-friendly robot that can communicate with human beings as a test bed or platform. Since face and facial expressions are very crucial factors for communication, we have been developing a face robot which has a human-like face and can express facial expressions as similar as human being. The important factors of face robot for coexistence and communication with humans are 1. human size and compact, and 2. easy to control. While we have used air cylinders with pressurized air for the first-generation of face robot, to accomplish these two factors, we decided to use a SMA(shaped memory alloy) actuators driven by electricity and built the second-generation of face robot. Although we succeeded in making human size face robot, it came to clear that SMA does not have enough power and speed To overcome these issues, we develop air-tube-actuator driven by pressurized air and manufacture the third-generation of face robot. In this paper, we present how to built the third-generation of face robot and its basic ability.