Facial Expressions and Communication Patterns in Robots: A Face Design

Facial expressions are a powerful form of communication humans use to convey a wide range of non-verbal cues. With the idea that robots will become an integral part of our daily interactions, we want to explore how different facial expressions of a humanoid robot affect human-robot interaction, as there currently needs to be a greater understanding of how humans perceive facial expressions in robots. Do users want robots to have human-like levels of expressiveness in collaborative tasks? What are essential states to be expressed by a robot with facial expressions? Can we perceive robots as curious, uncertain, or confident just by their facial expressions?

You will:

• Perform a literature review on the facial expressions of robots and other digital assistants
• Find out the content which is appropriate to be delivered by facial expression in the context of robot-learning and collaboration.
• Find at least three core concepts of how to create and design facial emotions
• Iteratively design different facial designs for a robot with various expressions
• Conduct a user study to investigate the effect of different facial expressions from robots to humans
• Summarize your findings in a thesis and present them
• (Optional) Co-writing a research paper

You need:

• Strong communication skills in english
• Very good design skills
• (Optional) Prior experience in animation design
• Fundamental programming skills (python)