MAC-EYE: a tendon driven fully embedded robot eye

This paper presents a new tendon driven robotic eye. The system has been designed to emulate the actual saccadic and smooth pursuit movements performed by human eyes. The system consists of a sphere (the eye-ball), actuated by four independent tendons driven by four DC motors, integrated in the system. The eye-ball hosts a miniature CMOS color camera and is hold by a low friction support allowing three rotational degrees of freedom. Optical sensors provide feedback to control the correct tendons' tensions during operations. The control of the eye is performed by means of an embedded controller connected to a host computer using CAN bus.

I. Introduction

This paper presents a fully embedded tendon driven robot eye designed to study and emulate the actual movements of a human eye. In fact, eye movements seem to obey to basic laws, whose role for the vision and perception in animals, and implications for the development of intelligent robot and machines are still to be fully understood.