MAC-EYE: a tendon driven fully embedded robot eye

Abstract

This paper presents a new tendon driven robotic eye. The system has been designed to emulate the actual saccadic and smooth pursuit movements performed by human eyes. The system consists of a sphere (the eye-ball), actuated by four independent tendons driven by four DC motors, integrated in the system. The eye-ball hosts a miniature CMOS color camera and is hold by a low friction support allowing three rotational degrees of freedom. Optical sensors provide feedback to control the correct tendons' tensions during operations. The control of the eye is performed by means of an embedded controller connected to a host computer using CAN bus.