Matt Denton of MicroMagic Systems specializes in animatronics for the film industry. Check out the very interesting (creepy) face tracking robot called i.c Hexapod. A bit of technical background: i.C. has an on board processor I have developed called the p.Brain, this takes care of all body leg and body locomotion. The p.Brain runs on a PIC ds33F processor. There is an off board Windows XP Mini-ITX based PC with a Pentium M 1.73Ghz processor which takes care of the face recognition and tracking. This PC is connected to the p.Brain via a serial link. Only simple commands such as X,Y and Z rotation of the head and body are sent to the p.Brain from the PC. This means that if the PC crashes (which they so often do!) The p.Brain will put i.C to sleep without damaging any of the servos. There are 21 servos on i.C. hexapod. 3 degrees of freedom for each leg, 2 for head pan and tilt, and one which acts as a blink shutter for the main lens. i.C. blinks when a picture has been taken, pictures are stored locally with the time data and location they were taken, and also uploaded to a server for his website (still under development).” |
October 22nd, 2007
Ok, that’s a new low for HG. Usually you feature sites that
show off how they did it, what type of code they used, etc.
This time you show off something which is borderline commercial,
and has no code, nothing. Interesting project, but as someone
that does similar things in their spare time, and has not
managed to finish a face recognition routine yet, I’d love to
have access to someone else’s. Alas, it’s not to be.
-T.
October 22nd, 2007
[…] check the full story here […]
October 22nd, 2007
I thought this robot was particularly interesting. It’s fluidity of motion makes it’s movements pretty life-like.
October 22nd, 2007
Hexapod V4b (base):
Tech Stuff
Servos: Futaba 3002/9206/9206
Battery: NiMh 4.8V 2700mah
Servo Driver: 1 X p.Brain-ds
CPU: dsPIC30F4011 (58.96Mhz)
Radio Link: bluetooth
Weight: Aprox 1.8Kg (with battery)
(from http://micromagicsystems.com/)
October 22nd, 2007
More from the site:
i.C. Hexapod (Developed 2006/7)
i.C. is a brand new hexapod robot that responds to and recognises the human beings it encounters. Retaining all of the movement and control characteristics of previous Hexapods from Micromagic Systems, i.c. adds a new level of interactivity.
i.C. is always looking for new people to meet. And when it comes across a human face it will lock on, and track and respond to its movements. It also remembers the humans it encounters by taking a photo and publishing it directly from its hexapod brain to it’s own personal hexapod blog.
“The inspiration for this project was simply to make a member of the ever-expanding Hexapod family into a piece of interactive robot art,” says its creator Matt Denton, “or, as I would put it, into a piece of ‘creative engineering’.”
i.C. Hexapod uses Micromagic’s V4b hexapod as a base platform, adding a new pan/tilt head that includes a CCD video camera linked to an off board PC running face recognition software. His website is hexapodrobot.com this site is not always on-line.
Technical Specs:
i.C. has an on board locomotion unit called the p.Brain, this takes care of all leg and body locomotion. The p.Brain runs on a PIC ds33F processor.
There is an off board Windows XP Mini-ITX PC which takes care of the face recognition and tracking (Pentium-M 1.73Ghz processor, 512Mb Ram & 40Gb HD). This PC is connected to the p.Brain via a serial link. Only simple commands such as X,Y and Z rotation of the head and body are sent to the p.Brain from the PC. This means that if the PC crashes (which they so often do!) The p.Brain will put i.C to sleep without damaging any of the servos.
There are 21 servos on i.C. 3 degrees of freedom for each leg, 2 for head pan and tilt, and one which acts as a blink shutter for the main lens.
i.C. blinks when a picture has been taken, pictures are stored locally and uploaded to a website with the time, date and location they were taken. The web site is still under development.
(from http://micromagicsystems.com/)
October 22nd, 2007
@Toby
He didn’t write the facial recognition routines by himself. He used OpenCV.
October 23rd, 2007
[…] via Hacked Gadgets Published in: Future Tech, Gadgets 0 Comments […]
October 23rd, 2007
[…] click here for more Possibly Related Posts:- Fatal error: Call to undefined function similar_posts() in /home/ablog8/public_html/wp-content/themes/4v-10/single.php on line 16 […]
October 23rd, 2007
Wow, that’s super impressive.
October 23rd, 2007
give me one that spins webs and i will never be sad or bored again.
October 23rd, 2007
[…] via HackedGadgets blinks, brain, Circuits, Consumer, Cool, degrees of freedom, educational, Entertainment, face recognition software, gadgets, generation robot, hackedgadgets, hexapod robot, mini itx, opencv, processor, Robots, serial link, servos, technical background, this means that, tight ass, time data, youtubeblinks, brain, Circuits, Consumer, Cool, degrees of freedom, educational, Entertainment, face recognition software, gadgets, generation robot, hackedgadgets, hexapod robot, mini itx, opencv, processor, Robots, serial link, servos, technical background, this means that, tight ass, time data, youtube var dc_UnitID = 14; var dc_PublisherID = 13853; var dc_AdLinkColor = ‘blue’; var dc_adprod=’ADL’; […]
October 24th, 2007
[…] Kilde: http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/10/22/face-tr… […]
October 24th, 2007
Sweet robot, has fluidaic motion. I wonder if it does anything else. The vid was lame because that douche kept looking at it. It was okay for the 1st 10 secs but throughout the whole vid, come on. If I was the robot I would attach that guy, my creator.
October 30th, 2007
Would be a cool face tracking webcam, but it too huge yet. I like the “reactions” of the robot when the dude approaches his face to it, it could be say “wtf r u looking?”
October 31st, 2007
I think it’s a neat concept but creepy at the same time, it looks too much like a spider for my liking but aside from that trivial aspect the technology is amazing to those of us who do not work with this type of technology on a regular basis.
April 1st, 2008
[…] Denton from Micromagic Systems has taken his cool Hexapod robot and allowed it to have some fun wih a pen! The results are very […]