Lip-configuration control of a mouth robot for Japanese vowels

摘要: When considering an improvement in communication between humans and intelligent machines like computers robots, it is natural that coordination facial expression as a nonverbal modality voice verbal one may create more human-like communicative interaction. We have developed construction of mouth robot which can generate lip configurations for Japanese vowels "a", "i", "u", "e", "o". This paper describes (1) analysis the shape formed on human face when he/she pronounces (2) determination position human-made muscles needed to form shape, (3) small pneumatic actuator performances, (4) mechanical frame structure installing man-made skin, (5) demonstration shapes vowels.