S.: Rapid synchronization and accurate phaselocking of rhythmic motor primitives

Abstract — Rhythmic movement is ubiquitous in human and animal behavior, e.g., as in locomotion, dancing, swimming, chewing, scratching, music playing, etc. A particular feature of rhythmic movement in biology is the rapid synchronization and phase locking with other periodic events in the environment, for instance music or visual stimuli as in ball juggling. In traditional oscillator theories to rhythmic movement generation, synchronization with another signal is relatively slow, and it is not easy to achieve accurate phase locking with a particular feature of the driving stimulus. Using a recently developed framework of dynamic motor primitives, we demonstrate a novel algorithm for very rapid synchronization of a rhythmic movement pattern, which can phase lock any feature of the movement to any particular event in the driving stimulus. As an example application, we demonstrate how an anthropomorphic robot can use imitation learning to acquire a complex drumming pattern and keep it synchronized with an external rhythm generator that changes its frequency over time

Development of a miniature pair of eyes with camera for the humanoid robot robota

A growing trend in humanoid robotics tend at reducing the size of humanoids in order to lower their building costs. While growing small has its advantages, it also has drawbacks. In particular, providing miniature humanoids with the same sensorimotor capabilities as their grown-up peers is a challenge, both in terms of mechanics, electronics and control. The Robota project creates humanoids, whose size should match that of a commercial doll, so that they can be used as part of experiments with autistic children. Because these experiments measure the child’s ability to socially interact with others, it is fundamental to provide the robot with sensory capabilities, such as speech and vision, that are at the basis of these interactions. This paper presents the creation of a miniature pair of mobile eyes, mounted with miniature cameras to provide Robota with binocular and mobile vision. The system allows the robot to blink, to direct its gaze toward or away from its user and to track the user’s face.