Head-Eye Coordination of Humanoid Robot with Potential Controller

With the advancements in the field of anthropomorphic robots, the interest in generating human-like motions has grown ever so rapidly. A major role in this regard is played by control algorithms that produce appropriate dynamic responses with the robot hardware. In this paper we utilized a potential controller to obtain human-like head-eye movements of a robotic android head. The orientations of the robotic head and eyes were subjected to the same constraints that govern human head and eye orientations to the extent allowed by the mechanical design. On top of the potential controller, visual feedback was used to improve the precision of visual target acquisition. The controller was tested in two scenarios; acquiring a fixed target and tracking a moving target in the field of view of the robot. Head orientations of the robot were compared to those of a human subject for a target tracking experiment. Results indicate that the controller is capable of performing object tracking tasks while exhibiting realistic human-like head orientations.