Development of the anthropomorphic head-eye robot WE-3RII with an autonomous facial expression mechanism

In this study, the authors have been developing anthropomorphic head-eye robots, in order to elucidate the human vision system from an engineering point of view, and to develop a new head mechanism and function for a humanoid robot having the ability to communicate naturally with a human. We developed the anthropomorphic head-eye robot 'WE-3RII' (Waseda Eye No. 3 Refined II), with eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, lips, jaw and a neck. The robot has the ability to express an autonomous facial expression using three independent parameters of a psychological model. With the robot, the mechanism of changing eye movement from smooth pursuit eye movement to saccadic, and the control of scanning eye movement like that of a human's can be achieved. The robot is also able to express more human-like motion in pursuing a target by changing its eyeball control parameters, rather than that of WE-3R which we developed in 1996. Therefore, the authors have confirmed that WE-3RII has the ability to realize a pursuing motion in three dimensional space with its autonomous facial expression adapting to the target position and brightness like a human.