Design of an interactive robotic head with human-like movements

A vast range of human-friendly interactive robotics heads are developed by researchers. However, the interactive robot heads require improvements in construction and behavior to achieve more human-like interaction. Therefore this paper proposes a design of an interactive robotic head with human-like movements and human-friendly interactive features. The design parameters have been identified by analyzing the biomechanical information related to basic head movements. The proposed robotic head is incorporated with 3-degrees of freedom (DOF) for the neck and 3-DOFs for eyes. Vision has been achieved by using two cameras which act as eyes. The Details of the kinematic analysis, particulars on mechanical design of the system, the electrical and control system of the robotic head are provided. An interactive robotic head movement by tracking human hand movements is targeted initially as an interactive feature. A simulation model of the proposed robot has been developed for testing and analysis. The simulation results for a selected movement of the robot for the above mentioned scenario is presented. Further, the proposed robotic head is designed in such a way that it can be used as a platform for facilitating further developments in integrating more interactive features to robotic heads.