Gradually, we are getting closer and our head is becoming interactive.
For social interactions and thus for social robots, verbal and nonverbal communication is essential. Therefore, we have put a lot of emphasis on the design of our head. Agile head movements with silent gearless drives and lively facial expressions enable expressive power. The high performance computer vision on board enables real time reactions to the environment. In particular, this allows the robot to make and actively maintain eye contact. Together with the 3D lenses in front of the displays, the result is an amazingly realistic impression.
But we haven’t reached our goal yet. Once things are running, you can see all the details that can still be developed and tuned. And the dialog itselfe is scripted and not interactive. Still, after so long, it’s nice to see that the vision we had is now becoming reality. Many voices warned us that it was too ambitious and not realistic. Sometimes you just have to trust your own voice – especially when you have such a strong team as navel robotics. Let’s wait and see where we are in a year!
Stay tuned.