Robotics
Hitachi has released the latest in its line of EMIEW service robots. With the competition for customer service humanoid robots heating up, the company hopes this smart rollerskating bot will have what it takes to succeed in the market.
In a recent press release, Hitachi has unveiled EMIEW3, a humanoid robot, and its "remote brain" robotics IT platform. EMIEW3 was developed to service in stores and public facilities. The little roller skating robot is capable of autonomously approaching customers and asking if they need help.
The onboard "remote brain" is connected to a cloud-based intelligent processing systems and a remote operation system for monitoring and controlling multiple robots. The EMIEW3 is intended as a proof-of-concept for Hitachi and will be testing the robot in various situations and environments.
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Since the announcement of the original EMIEW in 2005, Hitachi has continued to develop symbiotic robots that can safely co-exist with people. Hitachi has developed functions necessary for customer service, and demonstrated capabilities which include autonomous mobility at a brisk human walking pace, isolation of human voice from background noise, accessing information from the Web to identify objects and using indoor network cameras as "eyes" to locate objects.More recently, artificial intelligence technology was applied for functions requiring advanced processing for dialogue and predictive functions to avoid collisions with moving objects which may suddenly appear in the robot's path.
The newly developed EMIEW3 is also enhanced with functions to identify a person requiring assistance, autonomously approach a person and initiate customer service, share information with other EMIEW3 units to ensure smooth service continuation, and if knocked over, to get back up to a standing position.
These capabilities put EMIEW3 in position to compete head-to-head with another Japanese humanoid robot, Pepper. Softbank has been selling Pepper as fast as they can manufacture them so far. Hitachi hopes that EMIEW3's quicke mobility will be a differentiator.
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