Toshiba materialized its vision to provide a human-centered technology in the form of a robot named ApriAlpha. It was a new invention dedicated to serve as a life support partner for humans. This prototype attendant is a 9.5 kg household robot, which has a CCD camera with built-in face recognition and is capable of moving in any direction using its three wheels. ApriAlpha robot has a speech recognition capability allowing it to respond to voice commands, a speech synthesizer that enables it to produce artificial human voice, and speech localization feature that permits it to detect the source of the voice.
In terms of telepresence, ApriAlpha robot has 802.11b for wireless connectivity to keep you or your loved ones updated on activity. It has a Bluetooth that can be linked to a LAN. ApriAlpha robot can send images directly to mobile phones and can be controlled by customary remote control using its IR receiver. This attendant robot watches its steps using the built in ultrasonic sensors. Although ApriAlpha robot can use conventional batteries, it is capable of using methanol fuel cell that was recently launched by Toshiba.
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