Lifelike robots are becoming increasingly popular in the real world. One of the newest human robots created by robotic scientists, named Nikola, takes the form of a child and is very similar to humans.
Researchers from the RIKEN Guardian Robot Project in Japan, developed a child robot named Nikola, which can convey six basic human emotions well.
This Android robot has moving "muscles" on its face that allow it to convey the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust.
Meanwhile, Nikola only consists of the head, no other body parts. Developers hope this robot can have various uses in the near future.
"Androids that can communicate emotionally with us will be useful in various real-life situations, such as caring for the elderly, and can improve human well-being," said Wataru Sato, who led the research team, as quoted by the Daily Mail.
On Nikola's face are embedded 29 pneumatic actuators that control the movement of artificial muscles with six actuators, which are then used to control head and eye movements. These actuators are controlled by air pressure, which the team says results in smooth movement.
Using a coding system called the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), the research team was able to control subtle movements such as lifting their cheeks and pursed lips, allowing them to convey six different types of emotion.
To test these facial expressions, the researchers showed Nikola to a group of participants while performing six of his facial expressions. They found that the participants could identify six emotions - albeit with varying accuracy.
"Nikolai's silicone skin is less elastic than real human skin and does not form wrinkles well. Thus, emotions such as disgust are more difficult to identify because the unit of action for nose wrinkles cannot be entered," the researchers explain.
Surprisingly, the team also found that the speed of different emotions had an effect on how realistic they were. For example, the most natural pace for sad expressions is slower than for surprise.
In the short term, the researchers believe that Nikola could have a wide range of applications in both social psychology and neuroscience. In the future, Nikola could be used for various applications in the real world, at least when he has got body parts.
"Since Nikola still doesn't have a body, the ultimate goal of this robot project is to build an Android device that can help people, especially those who live alone, who need physical presence," concluded the researchers.