Greeting robot

Abstract

This report outlines the final year project which is aimed at designing and constructing a “Greeting Robot” using iRobot Create as the platform. The “Greeting Robot” will be an integration of different electrical devices performing simultaneously to carry out specific tasks such as facial recognition of users within the vicinity and responding with robotic arm gestures as well as audio outputs.

The Greeting Robot will first detect the nearest end-user within the pre-set vicinity and gather visual inputs to conduct facial recognition on him/her. This signal will then be sent to the Mini-ITX CPU database for recognition of personnel. Upon recognition, the robot will produce audio output through the speaker by greeting the end-user. In addition, the robotic arm could perform simple gestures such as handshake or wave by mimicking the end-user’s actions as received through the Kinect.With the software and hardware performing simultaneously, the Greeting Robot was able to achieve the respective functions that it was set out to perform. Further improvements could be implemented onto the robot such as improving it for security purposes; using it to differentiate familiar faces with those not in the database, thus performing as a form of security.