Year: 2016   Location: Bristol, UK

Working with researchers in Telepresence Robotics from the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and Bath University, the world of puppetry was explored as a means of investigating how to express the complexity of human mannerisms through an Aldebaran Nao Humanoid Robot.

Background

An eighteen degree of freedom motion capture rig was designed to provide the ability to tele-puppeteer a Nao robot. Providing a comparison between the raw skeletal data gathered from a teleoperator and the puppeteers’ interpretation of the teleoperator’s mannerisms and gestures, working within the limitations of the robot’s movement range.