POPPerception On Purpose

POPEYE : An audiovisual robotic platform

In POP, The University of Coimbra developed three configurations (four prototypes) of an audio-visual robot platform, i.e., POPEYE, with four degrees of freedom. The degrees of freedom have high repeatability, i.e., high precision and low backlash due to the use of harmonic drives. The audio-visual heads were built to permit high velocities and accelerations, while minimizing the mechanical complexity. The kinematic configuration is flexible allowing changing the baseline of the "eyes" and fine adjustment of their positions relative to the rotation axes. The control allows the "on the fly" change of parameters and high flexibility. One of the configurations (for which two prototypes were built) allows the use of a dummy head with special acoustic properties enabling the development of binaural auditory algorithms that take into account the acoustic properties of the human head. The design takes into account the requirements to allow the reproducibility of the most important motions of the human audio-visual system and low complexity of the kinematic chain. In addition to the low complexity of the kinematic chain the mechanical transmission was also simplified by avoiding complex solutions such as differential drives, belts and pulleys-only harmonic drives are used. The design is not fully bio-mimetic, implementing only the mechanical degrees of freedom that allow eye-gaze and eye-vergence control. POPEYE is therefore an excellent platform for the development of audio-visual algorithms that study and exploit the most important types of motion involved in human vision and hearing.

Contributing partner : University of Coimbra.