Lip-configuration control of a mouth robot for Japanese vowels

When considering an improvement in communication between humans and intelligent machines like computers and robots, it is natural that coordination between facial expression as a nonverbal modality and voice as a verbal one may create more human-like communicative interaction. We have developed a construction of a mouth robot which can generate lip configurations for Japanese vowels “a”, “i”, “u”, “e”, and “o”. This paper describes (1) analysis of the mouth shape formed on human face when he/she pronounces Japanese vowels (2) determination of position of human-made muscles needed to form mouth shape, (3) small pneumatic actuator performances, (4) mechanical frame structure for installing man-made mouth skin, and (5) demonstration of mouth shapes formed on the mouth robot for Japanese vowels