JP2003265869A - Eye-eyebrow structure of robot - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an eye-eyebrow structure of a robot maintaining much friendship with mankind and improving functions, miniaturization, weight reduction and maintenance property. <P>SOLUTION: The eye-eyebrow structure of the robot is provided with eyeball parts of which cylindrical bodies are widthways provided from the front of the face to the back of the head, eyelid parts provided in proximity to upsides and downsides of the eyeball parts, supported respectively by each of one ends thereof and widthways extending, eyebrow parts transformable up and down, an eyeball part drive mechanism for pushing each of eyeball members up and down or right and left, an eyelid drive mechanism for making the eyelid parts wink and move up and down and an eyebrow drive mechanism for transforming the eyebrow parts up and down via a wire member. The eyeball drive mechanism drives around a pitch shaft by an endless long transmission means shared by the right and the left. The eyelid drive mechanism is so structured that as the eyeball moves around the eyeball pitch shaft, the eyeball pitch shaft and the right and the left upper eyelid members are cooperatively driven so as to follow for the right and the left upper eyelid members as well. The eyebrow drive mechanism consists of a drive mechanism transforming in both up-and-down directions by tensional force of the wire member. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention generally relates to the structure of the head or face of various robots,
The present invention relates to an eye / eyebrow mechanism of a humanoid robot that controls the movement of eyebrows and the like so as to approximate the expression of an actual human face. [0002] Conventionally, there has been known a robot that adds a facial expression, particularly an expression to a stationary face by moving eyes up and down, left and right, and closing eyes. There are also things that open and close eyes and crackles together with the action of closing and opening the mouth, but all are simple opening and closing operations, and the attention of the viewer compared to a face robot with a completely stationary structure is Somewhat arousing. [0003] Unlike an industrial robot used in factories and the like, this type of humanoid robot is used in the actual human living environment, such as at home or in a public place, for the purpose of welfare, entertainment or various events. Because it will be used in
High human affinity is required. The most important part of such an anthropomorphic robot is the movement of the head, especially the face, especially the eyes and eyebrows, and in recent years, the visual function of the anthropomorphic robot, that is, the eyeball and its surroundings Research and trial production have been carried out to give a further affinity to the operation mechanism. [0004] Among them, especially in the initial stage, 1
An anthropomorphic visual robot was developed. It has a total of four degrees of freedom, two degrees of freedom for the eyeball and two degrees of freedom for the neck. A monochrome CCD camera is mounted on the eyeball so that a target such as a light bulb can be followed by this image. As a further development, a two-eyed humanoid visual robot has been developed. This means that the yaw axis of the neck is directly driven through a harmonic drive reducer out of a total of eight degrees of freedom, two degrees of freedom for each eye and four degrees of freedom for the neck, and all other axes use a wire drive system with motor and spring antagonism. Has adopted. Further, a binocular humanoid visual robot having a face closer to a human being has been developed by attaching a four-degree-of-freedom eyelid portion to the head of the twin-eye humanoid visual robot and adapting to the light intensity. In this two-eyed humanoid visual robot,
Among the organs for adjusting the light intensity, mechanical hardware has been developed for the eyelid, and the function of the retina (adaptation) and the function of the iris (adjustment of the pupil diameter) are expressed by software. The eyelid has a structure in which a rubber film is attached to an eyelid member formed by bending an elongated plate made of duralumin in an arc shape as an edge. Like an eyeball, a DC servo motor and a spring are driven by a wire by antagonizing a spring to achieve a movement speed equivalent to that of a human. [0007] In this case, when the light intensity changes, a reaction such as narrowing of the eye cleft or closing of the eye occurs. In addition, it can be adapted to the light intensity by being combined with the movement of the neck which pulls or twists the neck to avoid the incidence of light. Furthermore, when the eyelashes are touched, a blink is realized by the perceptual reflection that closes the eyes reflexively. In order to further increase the affinity for humans,
Research has been conducted on expression expression mechanisms, and some of them have added the eyebrows, lips, and jaws to express the internal state of the robot. In this case, a coiled wire driving method is adopted for the eyebrows and lips. The eyebrows and lips themselves are made of coil springs, and the springs change their shape by pulling them with wires by a stepping motor mounted on the back of the robot, thus `` joy '', `` sadness '', `` anger '', It can express six basic expressions of "disgust", "surprise" and "fear". Until now, the eye movement when following a target has always been a smooth eye movement, but in addition to this, an impulsive eye movement is adopted to realize a more human eye movement. Further, by adding a roll axis to the eyelid mechanism, it is possible to raise and lower the outer corner of the eye, thereby enriching the emotional expression of the robot. [0009] As described above, humanoid robots have been researched and developed over the years in order to further enhance the affinity for humans, and in particular, the face, its eyeballs, eyelids, etc. Improvements and addition of new functional parts have been made to the so-called eye structure and mechanism. The trend is
The focus has shifted from functional mechanisms such as sight to emotional expression and accompanying facial expressions. [0010] In addition, conventional humanoid robots have a gimbal structure because of the simple support of the eyeball structure, the lightness of the camera drive unit, and the absence of backlash. A directional wire drive system is adopted. However, such a structure, left and right pitch axis,
Since the motor and spring must be antagonized by a total of four degrees of freedom on the left and right yaw axes and driven by wires, the structure of the head becomes considerably complicated, and the space for arranging the motor, spring and wires is large inside the head. It had to be taken, and the affinity from a human point of view was still insufficient.
Until now, metal wires have been used for driving wires.Thicker wires may cause space problems, thinner wires may break the wires, and increasing the number of wires makes maintenance very difficult. there were. In the case of an opaque material such as a metal wire, the wire is visible from the outside, and the affinity is not sufficient in this respect as well. In the past, a stepping motor was used as the motor of the expression part. However, the stepping motor has various problems such as a problem that the stepping motor often loses synchronism and a shortage of torque may occur. In addition to the humanoid robot, the same is pointed out with respect to, for example, an animal robot. The present invention addresses such a problem and ensures high affinity with humans, and further considers further improvements in function, size and weight, improvement in maintainability, and expandability. Another object of the present invention is to provide an eye / brow mechanism of a robot having a high emotional expression and a higher psychological affinity, particularly a humanoid robot. According to the present invention, in a robot having a pair of eyeballs, eyelids, and eyebrows on the front of the face, a cylinder is placed from the front of the face to the back of the head. The configured eyeball portion, an eyelid portion that is disposed vertically above and below the eyeball portion, and includes an eyelid member that is supported at one end and extends laterally, an eyebrow portion that can be deformed up and down, and the eyeball member. Up and down, an eyeball part driving mechanism for biasing left and right, an eyelid part driving mechanism for opening and closing and blinking the eyelid part and an up and down operation, and an eyebrow part driving mechanism for deforming the eyebrow part up and down via a linear member And the eyeball driving mechanism drives around a pitch axis by endless extension transmission means common to the left and right (for example, an endless belt or a wire).
And the yaw axis is driven by a motor / spring (for example, a torsion spring) antagonist, and the eyelid drive mechanism is configured such that as the eyeball moves around the eyeball pitch axis, the left and right upper eyelid members also follow and move. An eye / brow mechanism of a robot is provided in which the left and right upper eyelid members are driven in cooperation with each other, and the eyebrow part driving mechanism is a vertical bidirectional deformation driving mechanism by pulling the linear member. Next, the present invention will be described based on a preferred embodiment with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a front view of a face portion of a humanoid robot according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the face as viewed obliquely from the front. This robot has a head 1, a nose 2 and a mouth 3 at the center of the face, ears 4 on both sides, and a pair of eye portions 5 to which the present invention is applied, imitating a human face. The eye portion 5 includes an eyeball portion 6 having a cylindrical body and a light detection sensor such as a CCD camera incorporated therein, as will be described later, and an eyeball portion 6.
, And a pair of eyebrow portions 9 provided above the upper eyelid portion 7. A drive mechanism for operating the eyelids 7, 8 and the eyebrows 9 is incorporated in the face or the head. FIG. 3 is an enlarged left side perspective view showing the inside of the eye portion of the robot with the face shell removed, and FIG. 4 is a right side perspective view showing the inside of the eye portion. FIG. 5 is a front view showing an eye portion, particularly a driving portion of the eyeball portion 6 and the eyelid portion. The eyeball section 6 is a cylindrical body laid laterally so as to extend from the front to the rear of the face, and has a CCD camera 10 incorporated in the center of the front. The pair of eyelids 7 and 8 are respectively arranged above and below each eyeball unit 6, and are formed of slender, curved members (eyelid members 11 and 12) with a slightly protruding central front part, and one end of each face center side is respectively Actuating member 13 swinging about a horizontal axis
a, 13b. The upper operating member 13a is oscillated by an upper eyelid motor (upper eyelid pitch motor) 14 via a wire 23a and a pulley 24a, and the lower operating member 13b is driven via a lower eyelid motor (via a wire 23b and a pulley 24b). The upper and lower eyelid members 11 and 12 are oscillated by a lower eyelid pitch axis motor 15.
Is designed to perform opening and closing and blinking operations, or up and down operations accompanying upward and downward viewing of the eyeball. Note that the upper eyelid member 11 moves cooperatively with the eyeballs when looking upward and downward. Reference numeral 18 denotes an eyeball pitch axis motor installed on one side (FIG. 4). The eyeball is driven via a pulley 19 and a belt 20. Reference numeral 21 denotes an eyeball yaw axis motor. Here, to explain the movement of the eyeball, the upper eyelid moves together with the eyeball and the lower eyelid rises slightly when viewed from above. In downward vision, both the upper and lower eyelids move according to the movement of the eyeball. As described above, the upper and lower eyelid members 11 and 12 operate in cooperation with the eyeball. This cooperative operation can be realized on software, but in the present invention, the cooperative movement of the upper eyelid is realized on hardware. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 4, when the eyeball pitch axis motor 18 rotates, the timing pulley 19 and the timing belt 20 rotate, and the entire pitch axis of the eyeball rotates.
At the same time, the timing pulley 16 rotates via the timing belt 17, the eyelid motor 14 itself rotates, and the eyelid pulley 24a rotates along the wire 23a. In this way, the eyeball and the upper eyelid cooperate. In general, human eye movements have three degrees of freedom, that is, horizontal, vertical, and swivel movements. In the earlier stages of development, we have considered other two-degree-of-freedom movements excluding the swirl movements. That is, the yaw axis (horizontal movement) and the pitch axis (vertical movement) have two degrees of freedom, and the left and right have a total of four degrees of freedom. In the present invention, by making the left and right pitch axes common, the left and right have three degrees of freedom, thereby reducing the weight and simplifying the head. Eye movement angle is ± 45 for both yaw and pitch axes
(Deg.). In addition, at the time of blinking, since the eyes are almost closed only by the upper eyelid, the movable angle is set to ± 45 (deg.) From the front similarly to the eyeball pitch axis. Next, the mechanism of the eyeball section and the eyelid section and the driving method thereof will be further described. In the earlier development stage, the mechanism of the eyeball section was that the support was simple and that the camera drive section was lightweight. Due to the lack of backlash, the gimbal structure wire drive system was adopted. However, in this case, the motor and the spring must be antagonized in a total of four degrees of freedom of the left and right pitch axes and the left and right yaw axes and driven by wires, and the structure of the head becomes considerably complicated. A considerable space for arranging wires and the like is also required. In addition, the wires may be broken, and if the number of wires increases, maintenance is very difficult. Therefore, in the present invention, the pitch axis is
As shown in FIG. 5, the left and right are common, a belt drive system is adopted, and a motor having no backlash is used as the motor. As a result, the number of motors can be reduced by one compared with the conventional motor, and the number of spring wires can be further reduced.
As for the yaw axis, a wire drive with motor / spring competition is used as in the previous robot. However, if a tension spring is used, a space for the wire and the spring must be secured inside the head. Therefore, a coil-shaped torsion spring 35 (FIGS. 3 and 4) is used for the yaw axis spring to save space inside the head. With such a structure, the number of wires and springs can be greatly reduced, so that the space inside the entire head can be saved, and the number of wires can be reduced to improve maintainability. The upper and lower eyelids do not need to be as precise as the eyeballs, since their movements do not directly relate to the following movement. Therefore, a wire loop drive using a wire tensioner is employed as the drive method. The eyelid roll axis is directly driven by a small motor or the like. Next, the mechanism of the eyebrow part and its driving method will be described. FIG. 6 is a schematic side view of an eyebrow part driving mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 7 shows a structure of an eyebrow member 30 and a wire 31 connected thereto when the eyebrow is moved up and down by the mechanism of the present invention. It is a schematic front view showing a relationship. A linear member, for example, one end of a wire 31 in this embodiment is connected to the upper edge of the deformable eyebrow member 30 extending as a whole, and the other end of the wire 31 is connected to the lower edge of the eyebrow member 30. . A serpentine tube (wire tube) 32 is arranged on the back side of the face corresponding to the position of the eyebrow 30, and a middle part of the wire 31 is stretched through the serpentine tube 32 and is connected to the eyebrow driving pulley 34 of the eyebrow driving motor 33. Has been passed over.
A plurality of wires 31 and eyebrow driving motors 33 are provided in the direction in which the eyebrows 30 extend, and in the example shown, four are provided for one eyebrow member. To raise a certain portion of the eyebrow member 30, when the upper wire 31 is pulled up by the operation of the motor 33, the lower wire 31 is also pulled up following this, and the certain portion of the eyebrow member 30 is lowered. At that time, by rotating the motor 33 corresponding to the position in the reverse direction, the position of the eyebrow member 30 is pulled down, and thus the up-down bidirectional driving is possible. FIGS. 8A to 8D
FIG. 3 is a front view showing an example of an eyebrow shape obtained by the eyebrow driving method of the present invention. By controlling the eyebrow drive motor with reference to various human facial expressions in various situations, for example, it is possible to create facial expressions at happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and other facial expressions . An inconspicuous fishing line or the like is used as the wire 31. By adopting a method of raising or lowering the eyebrow member 30 up and down at a plurality of locations in this manner, a finer and more diverse expression can be created, and the affinity improves accordingly. In conventional robots, an eyebrow drive motor is mounted on the back of the robot, both ends of an outer wire tube are mounted on the motor mount and a face serving as a base for eyebrows, and one of the metal wires in the tube is connected to a motor pool. ,
The other is a coiled wire drive system using a motor and a spring attached to the eyebrow spring, but by using the wire bidirectional drive system as in the present invention, for example, it was not possible to obtain with the previous drive system. Eyebrow member 30 as shown in FIG.
Can be made. Unlike a metal wire, a transparent fishing line makes the wire less noticeable. In the above-described embodiment, a humanoid robot has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to a humanoid robot, and it is needless to say that the present invention is similarly applied to an animal robot and other general robots. . As described above, according to the present invention, in the face structure of the robot, the direct drive / belt drive system is adopted as much as possible in many parts of the eyeball and the eyelid, so that the motor・ Compared with the spring-competitive drive system, the entire head can be made smaller and lighter, the structure is simplified, and the maintenance is significantly improved. By making the eyebrow part also a wire bidirectional drive type using fishing line, it is possible to create various and rich expressions that can not be obtained conventionally,
A humanoid robot with higher affinity is realized.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a front view of a face portion of a humanoid robot according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the face of the embodiment of FIG. 1 as viewed obliquely from the front. FIG. 3 is a left-side enlarged perspective view showing the inside of an eye portion of the robot with a face shell removed. FIG. 4 is a right side perspective view of the inside of an eye portion. FIG. 5 is a front view showing an eye part, particularly a driving part of an eyeball and an eyelid. FIG. 6 is a schematic side view of an eyebrow part driving mechanism according to the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 7 is a schematic front view showing a relationship between an eyebrow member and a wire connected thereto when the eyebrow is moved up and down by the mechanism of the present invention. FIG. 8 is a front view showing various examples of eyebrow shapes obtained by the eyebrow driving method of the present invention. FIG. 9 is a front view showing another example of the eyebrow shape obtained by the eyebrow driving method of the present invention. [Description of Signs] 5 Eye part 6 Eyeball part 7, 8 Eyelid part 9 Eyebrow part 10 CCD camera 11, 12 Eyelid member 14 Upper eyelid motor 15 Lower eyelid motor 18 Eyeball pitch axis motor 21 Eyeball yaw axis motor 30 Eyebrow member 31 Wire 32 Serpentine tube 33 Eyebrow drive motor 35 Torsion spring

Continuation of front page    (72) Inventor Hiroyasu Miwa             3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Waseda University             School of Science and Engineering (72) Inventor Tetsuya Oguchi             3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Waseda University             School of Science and Engineering (72) Inventor Yasuhiro Okabe             3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Waseda University             School of Science and Engineering (72) Inventor Munemichi Matsumoto             3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Waseda University             School of Science and Engineering F term (reference) 2C150 CA04 DA25 EB01 EC03 EC12                       EC18 ED09 ED10 ED42 ED52                       EF16 EF33                 3C007 CY36 HS18 HT02 HT04

Claims (1)

Claims: 1. A robot having a pair of eyeballs, eyelids, and eyebrows on the front of a face, wherein the eyeball is configured by placing a cylinder sideways from the front of the face to the back of the head. An eyelid portion, which is disposed adjacently above and below the eyeball portion, and is composed of an eyelid member supported at one end and extending in the lateral direction, an eyebrow portion that can be deformed up and down, and an eyeball that biases the eyeball member vertically and horizontally Part drive mechanism, an eyelid part drive mechanism for opening and closing and blinking and vertical movement of the eyelid part, and an eyebrow part drive mechanism for deforming the eyebrow part up and down via a linear member,
The eyeball driving mechanism drives around the pitch axis by endless extension transmission means common to the left and right, and drives the yaw axis by motor / spring antagonism, and the eyelid driving mechanism moves the eyeball around the eyeball pitch axis. As the left and right upper eyelid members follow, the eyeball pitch axis and the left and right upper eyelid members are driven in cooperation with each other, and the eyebrow part driving mechanism is driven in the up and down direction by pulling the linear member. An eye / brow mechanism for a robot, characterized by a deformation drive mechanism.