Waiter
China Unicom has created a Chinese waiter robot that they call Waiter. It has been on display since September of last year. This service robot can be manipulated through one’s iPad and has appeared alongside a robot that was developed by researchers at the Zhejiang University, the Hai Bao robot.
The “waiter” and the Hai Bao robots were instrumental in promoting a variety of 3G apps that included mobile internet, cloud computing, mobile intelligent terminals, and even home networking at the 2011 China International Information and Communication Exhibition.
Moreover, this robot is capable of recognizing some basic human gestures like smiles and nods while it expounds on the company’s 3G services. It is also capable of responding to basic phrases, inquiries, and commands such as “hello”, “hi”, and “dance.”
The robot was developed with moving arms, laser rangefinder and onboard cameras. It also has two displays, one located at its head and the other on its chest, that show the robot’s emotions and animated face. It also displays information for people to watch.
Despite the advanced features that were installed on the robot, the cost of this humanoid has been minimal. This is made possible by piping the image and speech recognition capabilities of the robot in via a wireless network and not processing everything on board the robot.
Features:
China Unicom
