Bioinspired velocity control of fast gaze shifts on a robotic anthropomorphic head

In this paper we address the problem of executing fast gaze shifts toward a visual target with a robotic platform. The robotic platform is an anthropomorphic head with seven degrees of freedom (DOFs) that was designed to mimic the physical dimensions (i.e. geometry and masses), the performances (i.e. angles and velocities) and the functional abilities (i.e. neck-movements and eyes vergence) of the human head. In our approach the “gold performance” of the robotic head is represented by the accurate eye-head coordination that is observed during head-free gaze saccades in humans.