Motion control of a robotic puppet through a hybrid motion capture device

In this paper we explore the motion control of a robotic puppet through motion capture data. A motion mapping technique is investigated to map the human motion into marionette motion, and from that calculate the rotation of the servo motors to achieve desired marionette motions. A software was developed to capture human motions utilizing a bend-twist sensor system, and use the motion data to control the robotic marionette by either offline control method or online control method (real-time). We also propose the idea of integrating human into the system to close the control loop. Experimental results show that our motion mapping enables puppet to follow the actor motions with good correspondence.