Robot development is rapidly advancing due to the increasing demand for smart machines in various sectors, including warehouses, homes, and medical surgeries.

Companies globally are competing to create robots with human-like qualities. Scientists in China, led by Professor Liu Xiaofeng from Hohai University, have developed humanoid robots capable of realistic facial expressions.

They created a new algorithm to address the issue of robots’ lack of authentic facial expressions, which hampers user engagement, Interesting Engineering has reported.

Their two-stage method generates nuanced facial expression images and enables robots to exhibit natural expressions with high degrees of freedom.

This innovative approach, detailed in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, uses an Action Unit (AU) driven method to synthesize fine-grained facial expressions.

Written by B.C. Begley