Chapter 2. WOBOT: going beyond the mechanics

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作者 : 雷傑 Jeffrey Sebastian Reyes Melgar (2014-07-17); 推薦 : 徐業良 (2015-12-08) 附註 : 本文為 102 學年度元智大學機械工程研究所雷傑碩士論文 Creation of a Caricature Robot, a Multimedia Approach for Robots at home 第二章 Chapter 2.

WOBOT is a hybrid of telepresence, companion and caricature robots. It offers an interactive way of communication through video conferencing and tele-operated facial expressions, and body motions.

When stationary, the appearance of WOBOT is a photo frame with two hands holding a tablet computer. (Figure 2-1) Figure 7. WOBOT Project, Figure 2-1.

1 作者 : 雷傑 Jeffrey Sebastian Reyes Melgar ( ); 推薦 : 徐業良 ( ) 附註 : 本文為 102 學年度元智大學機械工程研究所雷傑碩士論文 Creation of a Caricature Robot, a Multimedia Approach for Robots at home 第二章 Chapter 2. WOBOT: going beyond the mechanics 2.1 WOBOT: The first Caricature Robot hybrid WOBOT is our first design of a series of caricature robot. WOBOT is a hybrid of telepresence, companion and caricature robots. It offers an interactive way of communication through video conferencing and tele-operated facial expressions, and body motions. WOBOT is a simple non-humanoid robot, which put more emphasis on fun rather than functions, hoping to aid our older adults in communication, leisure and companionship. When stationary, the appearance of WOBOT is a photo frame with two hands holding a tablet computer. (Figure 2-1) Figure 7. WOBOT Project, Figure 2-1. WOBOT s first concept design WOBOT s motions were designed with three degree-of-freedom. Based on principles of cartoon character design and animation used by animators to produce animated films. WOBOT brings some of the features of animation into real motions. WOBOT s design, motion setting and facial animation, has been exaggerated on purpose to interactively play with the user. Such way was only possible through digital cartoon animation or hand made animations. In WOBOT and in all caricature robots, the simplicity of structure is vital, due 1

2 there is no intention of creating a highly complicated humanoid robot. Also it is not to be expected to perform difficult tasks. Instead it is expected for it to express moods or emotions through body motion and animation. This is called e-motion, electronic motion and emotion. Such e-motion set up works through a body and brain structure. Where the mechanical body reacts to the commands received through the application created for the smart device used as our robot s brain. Being the application the command center of the robot. It s called a caricature robot hybrid due it s first design was not intended to be a caricature robot, but a stationary telepresence robot. Later WOBOT was adapted and brought to life as a caricature robot. 2.2 WOBOT s design: animating a non-humanoid robot WOBOT s body structure was design to try to keep a low amount of degrees of freedom. Keeping the amount in such a way in which the structure was able enough to have minimal movement for expression design and animation as a cartoon could do. This was not an easy task due we understood that sometimes expression elements rely in many movements, facial expressions and more to be expressed. This research took a stand to move from the engineering part of the project to the technical aspects of animation and the Engineering Art of animating non-humanoid characters. The starting point was to analize the principles of motion that brought Pixar s Luxo lamp to life. Studying the movements and the limitation the lamp structure presented as a real life mechanical object. By analyzing the original rig created by John Lasseter (Current head of Pixar animation Studios and master animator), in his 1986 Luxo Junior short animation, we were able to determine the draft of the movements and degrees of freedom his animation rig had. Figure 2-2. Figure 2-2. John Lasseter s Luxo Lamp Rig, Luxo Jr

This first reference triggered an exploration in deep about the engineering of animation, to help understanding how can a life-like animation be brought to life in a mechanical non-humanoid body.

3 This first reference triggered an exploration in deep about the engineering of animation, to help understanding how can a life-like animation be brought to life in a mechanical non-humanoid body. Disney Research, Pittsburgh (USA), Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and Nara Institute of Science and Technology (Japan) in 2010 conducted an extensive research on Animating Non-humanoid characters with humanoid data, in which they presented a way of simplifying, rigging and ultimately animating in a more expressive way. The research presented important pointers that were applied into WOBOT s motion and animation design. This was Motion Representation, in which the motion design was to be a merely active representation of a humanoid motion. (Figure 2-3) Figure 2-3. Animating Non-humnaoid characters with Human motion Data, Disne Research, CMU and NIST, 2010 By enhancing the first and last pose of the character to resemble the final action, the transition motions were to be guided through the limitations of the non-humanoid robot. This final and starting pose was to be consistent with the non-humanoid character. Not being restrained by the usual limitations that body presented. Their Global transformation principle showed how to transform and adapt the map of the humanoid data into the non-humanoid body. This is based in the fact that non-humanoid body will not share the same amount of limbs, joints and position of such with humanoid ones. In some cases like in WOBOT, there are virtually no limbs present at all. Another element explained in this research was the optimizing the physical realism. This last one had, as it s main purposes: (A) Preserve the original motion as much as possible. (B) Maximize the physical realism (Although for a caricature robot this is not appliable) 3

4 (C) Maximize the likelihood with respect to the distribution output by the mapping function. This basically meant to evaluate that the final output of the animation was consistent with the original input. The mapping function is the translation of the latent points of the humanoid data and logically apply it into the correspondent most proximal reference points in the non-humanoid layout. With those elements then could complete the Global transformation of position and orientation for the motion design. The above was considered and applied to the motion creation of WOBOT to prepare it to be animated as a caricature robot. Facial emotions to be expressed by WOBOT where the input: Happy, Sad, Upset, Surprised, Scared and Disgusted. The physical motions that express such emotions were remapped into the skeleton of WOBOT. Preserving only the most valuable points of motion that will be able to express the desired emotions. Two poses are to be set as reference to implement motion. The final motion is to be evaluated in terms of effectiveness of expression. 2.3 Animating WOBOT WOBOT s mechanical body design only consisted in 3 degrees of freedom. This decision was made based on all the background research done on expressive animation and 3d skeleton rigs of 3d models, like John Lasseter s Luxo lamp. The original design of WOBOT was to contain only 2 degrees of freedom, yet this was not enough to successfully bring a more life-like animation into it. This minimal three-degree of freedom was part of the first steps into testing the minimal requirements that could bring a good motion. Understanding that 2 or even 1 degree of freedom could still bring motion too. WOBOT s minimal degrees of freedom allowed us to animate, a body, simulated limbs and head. Taking into consideration the mechanical limitations that WOBOT s body had, we laid out a basic skeleton rig that contained the basic elements that would allow us to move that skeleton to the basic poses created to start the animation process. Bringing WOBOT to life was not only based on the body motion, this was a combination of facial expressions, which are to be displayed on the tablet photo frame and the mood expression through color psychology, which we will expand later on this chapter. After the first skeleton layout was created, computer tested and built, the animation process was to begin. The animation principles discussed in chapter [also to be explained in the next chapter] one were applied to elaborate a combination of movements that were to be later on built into WOBOT s body and brain system. It started in paper, like traditional animation, then brought into computer simulation software and finally applied into the real robotic skeleton/body built (Figure 2-4). 4

5 Figure 2-4. Bringing WOBOT to life, from concept sketch design to motions translated to it s mechanical body 2.4 Color as a e-motion enhancer in WOBOT: WOBOT s simple mechanical structure presents a limitation of motion. E-motions were to be enhanced to complete the expression process. Color psychology principles were applied into the graphical appeal of the emotions. Based on the influence and reaction of colors for emotions [Kwon, Eun Sook A Study on the Color Emotion with Visual Tactility, 2012]. The color selection was not only based on the study of color emotion but also in the visual impact that such colors could provide while being displayed on the screen. The result of such combination allowed a more complete expression set for WOBOT. The color-coding for emotion was set up as follows: Happy - Yellow Sad - Blue Angry - Red 5

Scared - White Surprised - Disgusted - Fuchsia Green Simple examples of such color relation with each emotion can be found in daily life, cultural expressions and more.

6 Scared - White Surprised - Disgusted - Fuchsia Green Simple examples of such color relation with each emotion can be found in daily life, cultural expressions and more. Like the expression Monday Blues to imply sadness and decay, the yellow happy face that you can find inside your online chatting application, the steamy-infuriating red you see in cartoons being angry or upset and much more examples like this. 2.5 Body and brain structure: Quick overview The body and brain structure refer to the separation between the mechanical body and the command center of WOBOT. Figure 15 shows the information structure of WOBOT.The remote user manipulates WOBOT through the user interface on a smart phone/tablet/pc to show cartoon-like facial expression and body motion while video conferencing with the local user, the older adult staying with the robot in the home environment. By providing both verbal and nonverbal elements of interpersonal communication, the robot can better serve as the avatar of the family members or caregivers for expressing their care to the older adults at home. Figure 15. WOBOT s system infrastructure 6

7 References Moon, S., & Virk, G. S. (2009, August). Survey on ISO standards for industrial and service robots. In ICCAS-SICE, 2009 (pp ). IEEE. Bracken, C. C., & Skalski, P. (Eds.). (2010). Immersed in media: Telepresence in everyday life. Routledge.RP 7i robot, Intouch Health [ Izumi, M., Kikuno, T., Tokuda, Y., Hiyama, A., Miura, T., & Hirose, M. (2014). Practical Use of a Remote Movable Avatar Robot with an Immersive Interface for Seniors. In Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Aging and Assistive Environments (pp ). Springer International Publishing. Law, J., & Martin, E. A. (Eds.). (2009). A dictionary of law. Oxford University Press. Richmond, T. (2011). The Mad art of caricature!: a serious guide to drawing funny faces. Burnsville, MN: Deadline Demon Pub. Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). Disney animation: the illusion of life. New York: Abbeville Press. Disney, W. (Director). (1992). Aladdin (2 DVD Special Edition ): Disney. Disch, T. M. (Director). (1988). Walt Disney presents The brave little toaster: Walt Disney Home Video. Rossum s Universal Robots. (n.d.). Edward Alderton Theatre Home. Retrieved January 7, 2014, from Asimo, The World's Most Advanced Humanoid Robot. (n.d.). ASIMO by Honda. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from Figure 2(b). Paro therapeutic robot InTouch Health, RP 7i robot. (n.d.). InTouch Health. Retrieved February 16, 2014, from Hoskins, B. (Director). (1989). Who framed Roger Rabbit? : Touchstone Home Video. (1992). Bugs Bunny: Goodtimes Home Video. (1991). Disney's Beauty and the beast: Walt Disney Home Video. Lasseter, J. (Director). (1986). Luxo, Jr: Direct Cinema. 7

8 Yamane, K., Ariki, Y., & Hodgins, J. (2010, July). Animating non-humanoid characters with human motion data. In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation (pp ). Eurographics Association. Kwon, Eun Sook A Study on the Color Emotion with Visual Tactility, in International Conference on Colour Emotion Research and Application Proceedings. (Bangkok, 2002), Chulalongkorn University Press, pp Lodigiani, C. (Director). (2014). The illusion of Life: principles of animation United States: Vimeo. Jenkins, C., & Smythe, A. (2013). Reflections on a visit to a dementia care village: Catharine Jenkins and Analisa Smythe discuss what the UK can learn from a Dutch model of care, where residents live in an environment carefully crafted to emulate their previous lifestyles. Nursing older people. Dalzell, T. (Ed.). (2008). The Routledge dictionary of modern American slang and unconventional English. Routledge. Shapiro, L. (Director). (2013). I know that voice United States: Dundee Entertainment & Record Farm industries. 8

Telepresence Robot Care Delivery in Different Forms

ISG 2012 World Conference Telepresence Robot Care Delivery in Different Forms Authors: Y. S. Chen, J. A. Wang, K. W. Chang, Y. J. Lin, M. C. Hsieh, Y. S. Li, J. Sebastian, C. H. Chang, Y. L. Hsu. Doctoral