The Animatronic
Tongue and Vocal Tract Model
The animatronic model is actuated by servo motors. Filaments that represent biological muscles are connected to the motors individually or in symmetrical pairs. A total of 16 motors are available, 14 of those are allocated to the muscles listed below. The other two motors are spare motors that can be used in future expansions of the model.
Muscles simulated in AnTon:
Tongue:
Genioglossus (three separate sections)
Hyoglossus (two separate sections in left/right pairs)
Styloglossus (left/right pair)
Longitudinalis Superior
Palatoglossus
Jaw:
Geniohyoid
Temporalis (left/right)
Pterygoid medial (left/right)
Pterygoid lateral (left/right)
Other:
Orbicularis Orbis
Velum
Of these, the velum was not used in the experiments, as nasalised vowels are not prominent in English.
The
muscles
implemented
in
AnTon, as published in Hofe & More, Connection Science
20(4): 319-36, 2008. See section 'Publications'
for
references.
The
servo
base
board. It provides slots for 16 standard servo motors.
The servo motors are controlled
by a
controller board connected to a standard
PC USB port. The number of motors could easily be upgraded to 32 by
adding a second board.
Technical specifications:
Servo motors: 16x Cirrus CS601BB
Controller board: ServoCenter v3.1 USB
Control software: Written as PD (pure data) extensions in C.