Robot Gaze

2020: The announcement of the Robot Gaze robot with a human look

At the beginning of November, 2020 the research division of Disney, Walt Disney Imagineering, provided the robot with a human look which can imitate the movements of a human face, in particular blinking and the easy movements of the head.

The look is the key social signal creating perception of partners in interaction with each other. A main goal of founders of Robot Gaze among whom in addition to engineers there is Disney also specialists in robotics from the Illinois university and California Institute of Technology, in system development for simulation of a human look.

In spite of the fact that the provided robot is deprived of muscles and skin, developers managed to achieve excellent results in capability of the robot to imitate breath, the movement by the head and to react to a look of the person contacting to it. Robot Gaze is capable to adjust provision of eyes and the head to save the interlocutor in optimal focus.

The sensor installed in a zone of a breast of the robot allows it to define when the interlocutor tries to contact to it directly. The robot is capable to define a position of the person, to turn to it, having continued visual interaction at the expense of additional animation commands.

For example, the robot can execute sakkada, fast movements by eyes. It occurs when studying a human face which is near it. In addition to the realistic movements by the head arising against the background of simulation of respiratory process, the robot can also react to external irritants. Robot Gaze can look away, having heard noise then it returns to focusing of a look on the person.

After completion of development Disney will be able to use this technology, for example, for animation characters in the theme parks.^[1]

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