Researching and designing an intelligent humanoid robot for teaching English language

Abstract

This article presents the design of the mechatronic system for an intelligent humanoid robot, which is employed for teaching the English language. The robot’s appearance looks like a boy, at 1.2 m tall and 40 kg weight. The robot consists of an upper-body with 21 degrees of freedom, a head, two arms, two hands, a ribcage; and a mobile platform with three omnidirectional wheels. The control system consists of a computer that controls the entire operation of the robot, including motion planning, voice recognition and synchronization, face recognition, gestures, receiving commands from the remote control and monitoring station, receiving signals from microphones, cameras, receiving and sending signals to the mobile module controller and the upper body controller. Microphones, speakers and cameras are located at the head and chest of the robot to perform voice communication and image acquisition functions. A touch screen is arranged in front of the robot’s chest allowing the robot to interact with people and display the necessary information. The robot can communicate with people by voice, perform operations such as greetings, expressing emotions, performing dances, singing, applications for supporting English language teaching in primary schools and has extensible for many other practical applications.