An assistive mask with biorobotic control to enhance facial expressiveness

This paper presents part of an on-going project to design a wearable supportive device, in particular for the facial paralyzed patients to enhance facial expressiveness. As various complications can result in facial disfigurement and loss of functionality in facial muscles it is required to develop a supporting device for people with such conditions. The previously proposed robot mask, which consists of a head supporter and motor units attempts to recreate facial expressions artificially by pulling the facial skin through cables attached to the skin. Since a facial expression is the result of the full or partial activation of combination of facial muscles, it is necessary to control the amount of displacement of the artificially created skin movement. Furthermore, in order to facilitate interpersonal timing of facial expressions, it is necessary to be able to read the nerve signals and process them in real time. This paper presents a compact and fully controllable actuation unit for the earlier proposed robot mask, and analyzes the relationship between the displacement of the specifically selected areas of the face and the actuation by control unit. It also present a bioelectrical signal based real time signal processing system to determine the requirement for an artificial expression.