Kobian

A white-shelled humanoid with an expressive face including pink lips, black eyebrows and eyeballs, controlled by motors. It throws it's arms up to the sides in a gesture of surprise.
Kobian is surprised. Photo: Shizuo Kamayashi/AP Photo

Kobian is a humanoid that loves to make faces. It's designed to study human-robot interaction and it uses its body and face to display different emotions, including happiness, anger, fear, and surprise.

Creator

Waseda University

Year
2007
Country
Japan 🇯🇵
Categories
Features
Kobian gets smacked in the face. Video: Takanishi Lab

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Appearance

Neutral

Did you know?

Kobian uses a double-jointed neck to achieve more expressive postures.

An expressive humanoid robot makes a gesture with it's hands as it appears to roll its eyes and purse is lips.
Kobian is disgusted. Ewww. Photo: Shizuo Kamayashi/AP Photo
A white humanoid robot dramatically hangs its head against its raised hand.
Kobian is sad. Photo: Waseda University

History

The Takanishi Laboratory at Waseda University has been developing robot heads since 1995. Over the years, the lab has unveiled several models of its WE series of expressive heads. The researchers have also focused on biped humanoid locomotion, and in 1996 they started developing the Wabian humanoid series. In 2007, they combined their most advanced WE head with their most advanced Wabian legs. The result was Kobian. In 2010, the researchers upgraded Kobian's motor controllers with smaller modules and equipped the head with several additional degrees of freedom. In 2014, the Waseda researchers explored the idea of Kobian as a robot comedian, programming it to perform a variety of funny skits and monitoring the audience's response.

A white-shelled bipedal humanoid with an expressive face including pink lips, black eyebrows and eyeballs, controlled by motors.
Kobian is happy. Photo: Waseda University
A cartoonish humanoid robot with an expressive face reaches towards a red ball on a stick.
"Give me the ball, already." Photo: Waseda University

Specs

Overview

Capable of using facial expressions and body postures to show six emotional states: happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, anger, and disgust.

Status

Ongoing

Year

2007

Website
Width
50 cm
Height
140 cm
Length
45 cm
Weight
62 kg
Speed
1.8 km/h
Sensors

Two cameras, microphone, IMU, six-axis force-torque sensor (in the feet and forearms), force sensors (hands).

Actuators

Brushed DC servomotors

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)
65 (Head: 24 DoF; Neck: 4 DoF; Waist: 2 DoF; Trunk: 1 DoF; Arm: 7 DoF x 2; Hands: 4 DoF x 2; Legs: 6 DoF x 2)
Materials

Mainly aluminum

Software

QNX real-time OS and custom control and behavior software.

Power

Lithium-ion batteries, 20 minutes of operation. Or 48-V external power supply.