CHINA: Scientists unveil female robot designed to work as receptionist or tour guide in museums

A group of Chinese scientists completed their work last week on a new robot named Miss Rong Cheng (pron: wrong-cheng). The robot's designers say she is equipped with cutting-edge technology in human-to-robot interaction and responds to human voices. The robot is designed to look like a woman and it is programmed to speak Mandarin as well as a Sichuan dialect because she'll be sent to Sichuan Science Museum in Chengdu to act as a receptionist and tour guide. "We made it look like a smart and pretty girl. Our institute has been making great efforts in developing voice recognition system for many years. Now we use the voice recognition system on our robots. Meanwhile, the voice recognition function can make the communication between humans and robots more natural and personal, which highlights the progress we have achieved in making our robots more human-like", the robot's designer, Yue Hongqiang (pron: you-air hong chiang) said. The cost of this project is 300,000 yuan (37,500 U.S. dollars) and besides dancing and greeting, the 168-cm, 60-kg "beauty" responds to 500 to 1,000 commands in Mandarin. It took around a year for the scientists to finish this first human simulation robot in China. "I hope we can set a good example for all the other robot makers in China. We hope China-made robots can catch up with the ones made by Japan and South Korea, and ascend to the world top level", Yue Hongqiang said. The designers hope to sell the robots next year to customers such as hotels and entertainment outlets. The most advanced robot in the world is sleek-looking Asimo, produced by Japanese auto-maker Honda. Asimo, who can walk at a speed of one mile per hour and climb up and down stairs, costs roughly one million U.S. dollars.

ITN Source | August 11, 2006

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