The Theory
To create the illusion that our robotic face is actually on top of a neck, first we need to understand how the human neck moves and what the limitations are. The human neck has many muscles but its range of motion is limited to certain degrees on 3-axis.
The picture/animation above shows you (in case you never noticed) how the human head can move: Up and Down, Left and Right, Side to Side and any combination of those three. This is a very complicated system to recreate! So, to make our lives easier we will focus only on giving our animatronic head 2 axis of motion (Up and Down, Left and Right).
The picture above shows an example of what is known as a pan and tilt system. These are commonly used with still and video cameras as they offer the range of motion that most cameras need, whether they are monted to a tri-pod or a motion capture system. For our project here, we will be using the pan to rotate our animatronic head and the tilt to tilt the head forward or backward.
To create the illusion that our robotic face is actually on top of a neck, first we need to understand how the human neck moves and what the limitations are. The human neck has many muscles but its range of motion is limited to certain degrees on 3-axis.
The picture/animation above shows you (in case you never noticed) how the human head can move: Up and Down, Left and Right, Side to Side and any combination of those three. This is a very complicated system to recreate! So, to make our lives easier we will focus only on giving our animatronic head 2 axis of motion (Up and Down, Left and Right).
The picture above shows an example of what is known as a pan and tilt system. These are commonly used with still and video cameras as they offer the range of motion that most cameras need, whether they are monted to a tri-pod or a motion capture system. For our project here, we will be using the pan to rotate our animatronic head and the tilt to tilt the head forward or backward.