Enhancing Human Perception of Direct Gaze from a Social Robot through Eye-Head Coordination

The development and integration of robots capable of expressing gaze directionality through eye-head movements are crucial for effective human-robot interaction, especially for those with eye designs on 2D screens. Our proposed mutual eye-head gaze model aligns eye movements with head/body rotation, incorporating an attention engine for estimating the most saliency location, and a retina-fovea engine for precise gaze alignment. Additionally, the eye-head engine controls head movements, enhancing the robot’s ability to perform responsive coordinated eye-head gaze behaviors. This improvement leads to enhanced human subjective perception of direct gaze from the robot, ultimately holding potential for advancing human-robot interaction in social dynamics and human-centered robot development research.