UMAY1: A Modular Humanoid Platform for Education and Rehabilitation of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

In this paper, a humanoid platform comprising a 6DOF robotic head will be introduced with its concept design emphasizing its motion and cognitive capabilities. The focus of the research is to obtain an effective and modular humanoid robot platform which can be used in incremental rehabilitation and education of the children with autism spectrum disorders. Therefore, the first aim is determined to form a robotic head capable of visual interaction and human-like motion of the head and eyes, keeping a simple design in mind. After the mechanical design of the head is introduced, the kinematics and dynamics of the unique 3DOF neck mechanism is detailed. The active vision system on top of the neck structure having the remaining 3DOF has currently basic capabilities such as face and/or object detection and tracking. In addition, the active vision system is designed as a modular unit and a 3D vision capability can be turned on using a Kinect depth camera depending on the task or the operating mode of the robot