A new humanoid robot named Reem-B has been unveiled in Abu Dhabi, UAE. It is capable of face recognition, speech interaction, biped walking, traversing stairs, and sitting. It can also recognize and pick up objects, as well as evaluate and map out objects and direction of a room.
I’m quite impress with the way that it sits and the ability to handle the bottle that well.
Reem-B stands at 4’10” (1.47 meters) tall and weighs about 132 pounds (60Kg). It can carry up to 26 pounds (12Kg) in its arms and walk at a speed of 1 mph (1.5Km/h). It can also climb stairs and cliams to have 41 degrees of freedom. Using a main CPU that consists of a Core 2 Duo (1.66GHz) and a Geode (500MHz), the robot can operate for about 120 minutes before its battery needs to be recharged.
By comparison, Honda’s Asimo robot claims to have 34 degrees of freedom, is slightly shorter and lighter, at 4 feet, 3 inches tall, and weighing 119 pounds, moves a bit faster with a running capability of 4 mph, compared to Reem-B’s 1 mph walking speed.
Back in 2006, Honda Asimo was in Perth Royal Show and I had the chance to have a look at it. I kinda forgot what clever tricks it did, but the one that I remember was: It can climb stairs, and it was done really perfectly. You might had thought that was easy, but climbing stairs or walking through different terrains has always been a major challenge in mechatronics and robotics. From Reem-B’s video, I can’t see Reem-B doing that, and wonder if what they claim are really true. BTW, Honda Asimo looks a bit more well presented with a white body, unlike Reem-B dull and weird coloring.
Asimo can perform other things too, like an orchestra.
Of course, things can go wrong for Honda Asimo too, like falling from a step just like humans do.
Lesson learnt: Watch your steps when you’re walking.
The next challenge? I would say teaching the robot how to get up from a fallen position as that would be totally random and hard to guess, teach or program. It’s probably just a matter of time before this will be materialised.
No worries, robots and androids won’t take over our world yet like they did in “The Matrix” 🙂
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