A neural-based approach to facial expression mapping between human and robot

Abstract

This paper proposes a neural-based method to map facial expressions between human and robot. We applied the method to a sensitivity communication robot, Ifbot, which has been developed by our industry-university joint research project. The method enables the robot to imitate an arbitrary human facial expression. The paper describes the feature extraction from face image, and proposes neural network based parameter matching between human facial expression and Ifbot's facial expression mechanism. This paper also reports the evaluation of the facial expression transmission performance of Ifbot with the proposed system. The evaluation shows the effectiveness of emphasizing emotional expressions and the possibility of using Ifbot as an agent for distance communication. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.