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Starting from Active Vision Head

In late 1996, Infanoid 1 was born as an active vision head. Infanoid 2, which looks quite similar to Infanoid 1, was born in the spring of 1997. Both have two "eyes", each of which has two monochrome cameras for foveal and peripheral view, actuated by RC-servos for quick saccadic movements. For controlling the RC-servos, we developed a 68HC11-based motion controller (Pico-1), which was connected via serial communication line (RS-232C) to Sun Ultra Sparc 2 (Solaris) for vision-based intelligent processing.

photo: Infanoid 1 generation (active vision head) photo: Infanoid 2 generation (active vision head)
Infanoid 1 (1996), Infanoid 2 (1997)

The difference between Infanoid 1 and 2 is in the DOF arrangement. Infanoid 1 drives the common tilt first, then the independent pan for the left and right eyes. This arrangement of 3 DOFs has some advantages for stereo-vision processing. On the other hand, Infanoid 2 drives the independent pan first, then the independent tilt. This arrangement of 4 DOFs has some advantages for object recognition, because the horizen always looks horizontal. For actuating the eyes, the succeeding Infanoids (namely Infanoid 3, 4, 5, and 6) has the same DOF arrangement as that of Infanoid 1.

Actuating the head, mounting on Nomad

In 1998, we developed Infanoid 3, which has another 2 DOFs for pan/tilt of the head. The head was actuated by Harmonic Drive AC actuators, which was controlled by another 68HC11-based motion controller (Pico-1).

photo: Infanoid 3 (with an actuated head) photo: Infanoid 3 on Nomad, a mobile robot
Infanoid 3, Infanoid 3 on Nomad (1998)

In the same year, we transplanted the head onto Nomad 200, a mobile robot base. Nomad has a cylindrical body (approx. 100cm tall with 50cm across) with Ultrasonic proximity sensors, IR proximity sensors, bumper sensors, and a set of omni-directional wheels on the bottom. (This is the only Infanoid with locomotion capability.)

Humanization

We developed an upper-torso humanoid, Infanoid 4, in the summer of 2000. For this development, we used 3D CAD (SolidWorks) for the first time; before that, we used simple Draw-like softwares.

figure: 3D CAD image of Infanoid 4 (SolidWorks) photo: real assembly of Infnaoid 4 (not yet completed)
Infanoid 4: 3D CAD image and real assembly (2000)

Infanoid 4 uses a number of small motion controllers distributedly embedded in the body, in order to minimize the cables going through the joints. The motion controllers were, again, 68HC11-based Pico-11. The host PC was a conventional PC with Linux; for vision processing, we used a massively parallel SIMD processor "IMAP-VISION".

First version of Infanoid 4 had 23 DOFs: 6 DOFs in one arm, 3 DOFs in the torso, 3 DOFs in the neck, and 5 DOFs in the head. All of the DOFs (except LU and LL = upper and lower lips) were driven by wires and pulleys.

photo: Infanoid 4 with eyebrows pointing at a toy photo: Infanoid 4 with eyebrows (close-up of the head)
Infanoid 4 with eyebrows (2001)

In the early summer of 2001, Infanoid 4 got eye-brows; so it had totally 25 DOFs. The eye-brows were able to make symmetric motion (inside up/down × outside up/down) to produce emotional expressions.

Sophistications

In the summer of 2002, we developed Infanoid 5, which had a bit smoother and smarter body and actuated hands. The hand has 2 DOFs, the index finger (bend/stretch) and other four fingers (bend/stretch together), for grasping small toys and also making social gestures like pointing. We performed all vision/auditory processing and motion planning on Linux PC (or a cluster of Linux PCs).

figure: 3D CAD image of the hand of Infanoid 5 photo: Infanoid 5 pointing and grasping a toy
2 DOF hands for Infanoid 5 (CAD and real assembly) (2003)

From 2004, we have been using Infanoid 6, which looks almost equivalent to Infanoid 5, but the internally embedded motion controllers and motor drivers were totally replaced. The new motion controller was Pico-2, that used SH2 (7046) as the main processor. The new motor drivers were Poco-14 and Poco-42 with higher performance and less volume. The communication line was replaced with RS-485 for higher and more reliable communication. This is the current version of Infanoid.

Infanoid in Action

Infanoid 5 and 6 had several derivatives for different purposes. One example is a desktop head for hands-on experiments on vision-based interaction and emotional expressions. Another example is the head with a mock-up body for demonstration.

photo: Infanoid 5 (Desktop version) photo: Infanoid 5 (with a mock-up body
Infanoid 5 (Desktop version), Infanoid 5 with a mock-up body (2002)

Infanoid was designed to be able to travel for experiments and demonstrations. When being transported, Infanoid goes into a metal frame for protection; when demonstrating, Infanoid is mounted on the frame, whose height is adjustable to the subjects.

photo: Infanoid 5 being transported in a frame photo: Infanoid 5 mounted on the demo table
Infanoid 5 being transported, Infanoid 5 on the demo table (2003)

Also in the experiments with small children, sometimes Infanoid had a smock-like cloth, so that the children cannot poke their fingers to Infanoid's moving parts. We also put some aluminum covering on such critical parts for this purpose.

photo: Infanoid 5 in smock
Infanoid 5 in smock

Since Infanoids are all custom-made, we will continue to modify and upgrade Infanoids for different purposes of experiments and observations as well as just for making Infanoids cuter and smarter.