Experimental platform for Wizard-of-Oz evaluations of biomimetic active vision in robots

A novel paradigm for the evaluation of human-robot interaction is proposed, with special focus on the importance of natural eye and head movements in nonverbal human-machine communication scenarios. We present an experimental platform that will enable Wizard-of-Oz experiments in which a human experimenter (wizard) teleoperates a robotic head and eyes with his own head and eyes. Since the robot is animated based on the nonverbal behaviors of the human experimenter, the whole range of human eye movements can be presented without having to implement a complete gaze behavior model first. The experimenter watches and reacts to the video stream of the participant who directly interacts with the robot. Results are presented that focus on those technical aspects of the experimental platform that enable real-time and human-like interaction capabilities. In particular, the tracking of ocular motor dynamics, its replication in a robotic active vision system, and the involved teleoperation delays are evaluated. This setup will help to answer the question of which aspects of human gaze and head movement behavior have to be implemented to achieve humanness in active vision systems of robots.