‘Ameca’ robot shows off more human-like facial expressions

Engineered Arts, the company behind the human-like Mesmer robot series, has unveiled a new creation that may weird you out even more. “Ameca” is a new humanoid robot that doesn’t have realistic hair and skin like Mesmer, but can instead show more human-like, natural-looking expressions than others we’ve seen, as The Verge has reported. 

 Ameca at first displays confusion as it appears to wake up, then shows mild astonishment when it moves its hands (the hand gestures looks fairly real, too). It then appears surprised to see the viewer or camera, and finishes the video with a smile and welcoming hand gesture. 

The improvements in facial animation look to be the result of more fluid movements than we’ve seen before. By contrast, the Mesmer “Fred” robot had decent head movements, but he “looks like he just had a shot of Novocain in his entire lower face” when he speaks, I wrote back in 2018.

It appears to have a fully articulated head, face, neck, shoulders, arms and hands, but Engineered Arts notes that none of its robots can walk — though the company is studying that capability. It’s not clear how Ameca’s facial expressions …read more