Design of a Spherically Actuated Human Interaction Robot Head

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a mechanism for actuating a sphere holonomically about 3 degrees of freedom (DOF). The target application is a robot head for mounting inside a vehicle to provide a driver with companionship, location specific information, and other assistance, via head motions in conjunction with auditory communication. Prior art is reviewed and two designs are presented: One mechanism is located below the sphere and provides an unlimited range of motion (ROM), and the other is contained entirely within the sphere but has a limited range of motion. The latter is stable and easily mounted, provides a clean appearance, and is particularly suited to human interaction applications.

Development of a spherical motor with a 3-DOF sensing system

“…Except from ultrasonic and electromagnetic designs as illustrated above, there are some other methods to generate multi-DOF motions as in [97][98][99][100][101][102][103]. Some of the following designs can also be characterized to electromagnetic motors; however, since their working principles are different from driving a spherical rotor by magnetic interaction between the rotor and stator, they are introduced separately here.…”