Control of Soap Bubble Ejection Robot Using Facial Expressions

This research has developed a soap bubble ejection robot as an amusement system that reads emotions from human facial expressions and controls the ejection of soap bubbles to improve human-robot interaction. A subject's response to soap bubble ejection is read by a built-in face recognition sensor which sends data to a control system which in turn controls the next ejection. Soap bubbles are often used to research children's emotions/emotional responses. First, evaluation experiments of the control system were performed using face photographs that show human emotions. The experimental results revealed that soap bubbles were ejected in the case of indifference, and the ejection stopped in the case of joy. Through the experimental results, it was confirmed that the control system worked properly when face photographs were used and also verified the effectiveness of the facial recognition sensor. Secondly, evaluation experiments were conducted with an actual human, and it was confirmed from the results that the control system operates as designed.