Wawa: A tumbler-like household robot

Household robots are widely popular with families for their interestingness. Based on the principle of tumbler, we have developed a novel household robot named Wawa (in the meaning of baby). This robot can be used for entertainment, home decoration, call alert, assisted play and so on. Usually a tumbler can only keep stability in the vertical direction and its swing is uncontrollable. With simple mechanical structure and concise control system, Wawa can be stable in any posture and can swing as desired. It thus can achieve two actions, which are dancing - regularly swing in predetermined trajectory, and face tracking - properly swing according to the position of the observers´ face. Experiments are provided to show the features and functions of the cute robot. The mechanical system, control system and motion planning are presented in this paper to show how robotic toy can be developed based on traditional toy with mechatronic technique.