Human-like robot head that has olfactory sensation and facial color expression

The authors have been developing human-like head robots in order to develop new head mechanisms and functions for a humanoid robot that has the ability to communicate naturally with a human by expressing human-like emotion. We were able to four sensations (the visual, auditory, cutaneous and olfactory sensations) of a humans five senses by developing WE-3RIV (Waseda Eye No.3 Refined IV). In this paper, we targeted olfactory sensation and facial color that humans use to communicate with each other A human olfactory sensation recognizes over a thousand smells. WE-3RIV can recognize the smell of alcohol, ammonia and cigarette smoke. Our olfactory sensor consists of four semiconductor gas sensors. WE-3RIV was able to recognize the recognition of certain smells within a few seconds of being presented with the smell stimuli by using sensor output and changing rate of the sensor output. Further, we developed the facial color expression using red EL sheets. By adding the facial color expression, the expressivene ss of the robot and the recognition rate of a robot's facial expression were improved.