A robotic head using projected animated faces

Abstract

This paper presents a setup which employs virtual animated agents for robotic heads. The system uses a laser projector to project animated faces onto a three dimensional face mask. This approach of projecting animated faces onto a three dimensional head surface as an alternative to using flat, two dimensional surfaces, eliminates several deteriorating effects and illusions that come with flat surfaces for interaction purposes, such as exclusive mutual gaze and situated and multi-partner dialogues. In addition to that, it provides robotic heads with a flexible solution for facial animation which takes into advantage the advancements of facial animation using computer graphics over mechanically controlled heads. Index Terms: 3D facial projection, facial animation, gaze direction, situated interaction