Associate Professor Yoshihiro Nakada of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Electro-Communications, Keiko Shinkawa, a master's student, and Assistant Professor Mizui Nakajima of the Faculty of Future Science, Tokyo Denki University have developed an android that can reproduce the gaze, mouth movements, and facial expressions of a remote operator. Developed the head unit and operation interface. Through Android, remote communication becomes possible as if the other party were actually there.
According to Tokyo Denki University, the research group installed 28 movable parts on the head of an android that looks similar to a human in order to reproduce the facial expressions of a remote operator, and created detailed facial expressions such as joy, sadness, anger, and surprise. I made it possible to release it.
The android's eyes and ears have built-in cameras and microphones, and the images and sounds that can be seen on the spot are presented to the operator through a VR headset. The operator's VR headset is equipped with sensors that detect movements of the operator's facial parts, such as eyebrows and eyes, and a microphone that captures speech, and the android's head moves based on this information.
In the operation verification, the smiles and eye movements between conversations were reproduced on the android's head, and the person facing the person could feel the presence of the operator through the android, and the operator could also feel the distance and relative position of the object being viewed. I was able to experience a high sense of realism, such as the positional relationships.
The research group says that by using the system it has developed, it will be possible to achieve a form of communication that is closer to face-to-face communication than traditional video conferencing, and in the future it will become possible to communicate beyond face-to-face communication.
Paper information:[IEEE Access] Development of the Lifelike Head Unit for a Humanoid Cybernetic Avatar 'Yui' and its Operation Interface
