Low-latency combined eye and head tracking system for teleoperating a robotic head in real-time

摘要

We have developed a low-latency combined eye and head tracker suitable for teleoperating a remote robotic head in real-time. Eye and head movements of a human (wizard) are tracked and replicated by the robot with a latency of 16.5 ms. The tracking is achieved by three fully synchronized cameras attached to a head mount. One forward-looking, wide-angle camera is used to determine the wizard's head pose with respect to the LEDs on the video monitor; the other two cameras are for binocular eye tracking. The whole system operates at a sample rate of 220 Hz, which allows the capture and reproduction of biological movements as precisely as possible while keeping the overall latency low. In future studies, this setup will be used as an experimental platform for Wizard-of-Oz evaluations of gaze-based human-robot interaction. In particular, the question will be addressed as to what extent aspects of human eye movements need to be implemented in a robot in order to guarantee a smooth interaction.