Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
human body motion. The system needs many cameras for robust measuring. We,
however, could not set enough cameras for robust measurement in the prototype
system because the system used the immersive display in which there was small
space. We therefore developed a motion capture system by using infrared range
sensors (IR-range sensors) for the system.
ECAs which are used in this architecture are virtual agents which are im-
plemented using the GECA Framework [5] and multi-degree of freedom robots
(NAO, Aldebaran Co., Ltd). NAO is a robot which can be controlled by using
wireless LAN and control programs. We can control angles of the head, shoulders,
elbows, wrists, fingers, hip joints, knees and ankles of NAO.
Fig. 2.
Devices which we use in the prototype
Figure 2 shows the devices in the prototype system. The 360-degree camera
and NAO is used when we use a robot as an operated ECA. The immersive
display composed of eight portrait orientation LCD monitors with a 65 inch
screen size in an octagon shape. The diameter of the octagon is about 2.5 meters.
The infrared range sensor is used to detect human upper body motions.
System architecture.
Figure 1 also shows an architecture of the prototype
system which we are implementing. The prototype system can obtain and ex-
press head orientation, movements of upper body and hands, and prosody of
utterances (pitch and power of voices) for the preliminary experiment, in which
a negotiation task will be conducted.
An immersive display reproduces a 360-degree image around an ECA to pro-
videapersoninCEBEwithinformation which the ECA perceives. When we
use a virtual agent, the virtual space image which is around the virtual agent
is displayed. When we use a robot, the image which is captured by the 360-
degree camera is displayed. The person in the 360-degree vision system can see
all around the ECA. Movements of the upper body and hands of the person are
not prevented by the displays. Eight surround speakers play sounds which the
ECA can listen. The person can detect the direction of the sound source to some
degree.
