Rosie, a maid robot, was just a science fiction cartoon when she debuted fifty years ago. But, in today's world, the concept of a helpful robot is more scientific than fictional.
Although, there are many challenges in building a humanoid robot, like the concept of detecting and expressing emotions. In a recent experiment of creating an android robot that can express emotional reactions through its face. Nikola got built as an android robot head (like a small hairless kid).
Inside the face of Nikola, there are twenty-nine actuators (pneumatic) controlling all the artificial muscles movement. More than six actuators control the motion of the head and eyeballs. Air pressure controls these thirty-five actuators; that's why all the muscular activities are silent and smooth.
The researchers' team placed these pneumatic actuators based on the F.A.C. System. The F.A.C. System is used extensively for studying artificial facial expressions.
Previous research has named many facial action groups, like cheeks raiser. They also show typical emotions like happiness and disgust. The researchers have also added these action groups in Nikola's code.
Studies of emotional reactions may contain a problem as it is difficult to experiment with live people. But, watching photos and videos are less natural reactions and are not the same for all people.
One can hope with Nikola that one can control every reaction of Nikola's emotions and can study his interactions as well. Anyhow, the first step is to see Nikola's facial expressions and analysis them as understandable or not.
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