• Olivia
Singapore’s A*Star Social Robotics Laboratory (ASORO) unveiled a pair of service robots at RoboCup 2010 called Lucas and Olivia. The receptionist robot Olivia is 160cm (5’2″) tall, weighs a hefty 152kg (335 lbs), and moves on a four-wheeled Power BOT base. Olivia has 26 degrees of freedom (head x2, 2 arms x6, 2 hands x6). When not in use, it’s two arms can be kept out of harm’s way by retracting inside the main body. The arms can replicate human gestures, and its hands can grasp and hold small objects.
It has stereoscopic cameras for vision with an additional mono camera, which focuses on the face to detect and track features (like lip movements), 8 microphones in its head for sound localization, and an additional 4 mics in its chest for improved speech recognition. A pair of touch sensors in its head allow Olivia to react to physical contact, and color-changing light rings display its status and mood. Ultrasonic sensors and a laser ranger finder in its base provide obstacle recognition.
A*Star’s social robotics research uses a dialog management system called Apollo as well as Attention Directed Dialogue to study human-robot interaction. At RoboCup 2010, visitors could tell Olivia to turn a nearby lamp on and off as an example of how it may be used to control appliances. It’s main function would be greeting and guiding visitors using natural spoken language and gestures.
A few more cg renders and a couple of videos of Olivia in action follow after the break.
[source: ASORO] via [IEEE Spectrum]
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Image credit:
A*Star
