Study of a face robot platform as a kansei medium

The objective 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 is required to construct a human-friendly robot that can communicate with human as a test bed and/or platform. Since face and facial expressions are very crucial factors for communication, we develop a face robot which has a human-like face and can express facial expressions as similar as human beings. The important factors of a face robot for coexistence and communication with humans are: 1) human size and compact, and 2) easy to control. We had previously used air cylinders with pressurized air for the face robot, but to accomplish these two factors, we have decided to use SMA (shaped memory alloy) actuators driven by electricity. In this paper, we present a prototype of the new SMA-actuated face robot and show its typical ability