Face Tracking Hexapod Robot

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Matt Denton of MicroMagic Systems specializes in animatronics for the film industry. Check out the very interesting (creepy) face tracking robot called i.c Hexapod.

“i.c. Hexapod interacts with people by following them around. If his gaze is held long enough, he takes a picture and uploads it to a website: hexapodrobot.com”


Some additional information (thanks Matt):

“The hexapod was my fourth generation robot, and took around 2 weeks to build, the hexapod locomotion engine has been developed on and off over a couple of years. The face recognition software was based on OpenCV libraries, integration of face recognition into the i.C. hexapod face tracking took around 1 week, but with several weeks of fine tuning and enhancements.

A bit of technical background:

i.C. has an on board processor I have developed called the p.Brain, this takes care of all body leg and body locomotion. The p.Brain runs on a PIC ds33F processor.

There is an off board Windows XP Mini-ITX based PC with a Pentium M 1.73Ghz processor which takes care of the face recognition and tracking. This PC is connected to the p.Brain via a serial link. Only simple commands such as X,Y and Z rotation of the head and body are sent to the p.Brain from the PC. This means that if the PC crashes (which they so often do!) The p.Brain will put i.C to sleep without damaging any of the servos.

There are 21 servos on i.C. hexapod. 3 degrees of freedom for each leg, 2 for head pan and tilt, and one which acts as a blink shutter for the main lens. i.C. blinks when a picture has been taken, pictures are stored locally with the time data and location they were taken, and also uploaded to a server for his website (still under development).”

Thanks Matt.

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22 Comments


  1. Ok, that’s a new low for HG. Usually you feature sites that
    show off how they did it, what type of code they used, etc.
    This time you show off something which is borderline commercial,
    and has no code, nothing. Interesting project, but as someone
    that does similar things in their spare time, and has not
    managed to finish a face recognition routine yet, I’d love to
    have access to someone else’s. Alas, it’s not to be.

    -T.



  3. I thought this robot was particularly interesting. It’s fluidity of motion makes it’s movements pretty life-like.


  4. Hexapod V4b (base):

    Tech Stuff

    Servos: Futaba 3002/9206/9206
    Battery: NiMh 4.8V 2700mah
    Servo Driver: 1 X p.Brain-ds
    CPU: dsPIC30F4011 (58.96Mhz)
    Radio Link: bluetooth
    Weight: Aprox 1.8Kg (with battery)

    (from http://micromagicsystems.com/)


  5. More from the site:

    i.C. Hexapod (Developed 2006/7)

    i.C. is a brand new hexapod robot that responds to and recognises the human beings it encounters. Retaining all of the movement and control characteristics of previous Hexapods from Micromagic Systems, i.c. adds a new level of interactivity.

    i.C. is always looking for new people to meet. And when it comes across a human face it will lock on, and track and respond to its movements. It also remembers the humans it encounters by taking a photo and publishing it directly from its hexapod brain to it’s own personal hexapod blog.

    “The inspiration for this project was simply to make a member of the ever-expanding Hexapod family into a piece of interactive robot art,” says its creator Matt Denton, “or, as I would put it, into a piece of ‘creative engineering’.”

    i.C. Hexapod uses Micromagic’s V4b hexapod as a base platform, adding a new pan/tilt head that includes a CCD video camera linked to an off board PC running face recognition software. His website is hexapodrobot.com this site is not always on-line.

    Technical Specs:

    i.C. has an on board locomotion unit called the p.Brain, this takes care of all leg and body locomotion. The p.Brain runs on a PIC ds33F processor.

    There is an off board Windows XP Mini-ITX PC which takes care of the face recognition and tracking (Pentium-M 1.73Ghz processor, 512Mb Ram & 40Gb HD). This PC is connected to the p.Brain via a serial link. Only simple commands such as X,Y and Z rotation of the head and body are sent to the p.Brain from the PC. This means that if the PC crashes (which they so often do!) The p.Brain will put i.C to sleep without damaging any of the servos.

    There are 21 servos on i.C. 3 degrees of freedom for each leg, 2 for head pan and tilt, and one which acts as a blink shutter for the main lens.

    i.C. blinks when a picture has been taken, pictures are stored locally and uploaded to a website with the time, date and location they were taken. The web site is still under development.

    (from http://micromagicsystems.com/)


  6. @Toby
    He didn’t write the facial recognition routines by himself. He used OpenCV.




  10. give me one that spins webs and i will never be sad or bored again.




  13. Sweet robot, has fluidaic motion. I wonder if it does anything else. The vid was lame because that douche kept looking at it. It was okay for the 1st 10 secs but throughout the whole vid, come on. If I was the robot I would attach that guy, my creator.


  14. Would be a cool face tracking webcam, but it too huge yet. I like the “reactions” of the robot when the dude approaches his face to it, it could be say “wtf r u looking?”


  15. I think it’s a neat concept but creepy at the same time, it looks too much like a spider for my liking but aside from that trivial aspect the technology is amazing to those of us who do not work with this type of technology on a regular basis.







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