A Deep Learning Approach for Face Detection and Recognition to Initiate Human-Robot Conversation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is currently booming at almost all field. The inauguration of OpenAI ChatGPT using Natural Language Processing (NLP) has played a vital role in exposing AI to the public. It is estimated about 1.8 billion users visit ChatGPT site in a month, with further planning of apps creation in iTunes Apple App Store and Android Google Playstore. Therefore, it is interesting and natural to implement such technology in robotic field. This paper presents the attempt to employ AI into the mobile robot system towards the main goals of conversational intelligence between human and robot. First, the robot head is designed and assembled, then a screen that functioned as the robot face is attached. Afterwards the detection and recognition system were developed giving the ability to the robot to recognize registered persons and the robot eye is able to track where the person is, in the camera Field-of-View (FOV). In addition, all these systems are developed on in-situ device i.e. NVIDIA® JetsonTM Nano. It is targeted that the proposed system is able to initiate a natural conversation between a robot and a human user.