It seems not only Japan, but also Germany is capable of producing super-advanced humanoids. Case in point: AILA, a fembot [GER] developed at the Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz (DFKI/German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence).
AILA, in her current form, stands 170cm tall. There are 22 joints in her body, a 3D camera, two laser range finders, six wheels shes moves on and an RFID reader. The DFKI says the main purpose is to put a semantic product memory system the research center developed to practical use. The DFKI doesn’t view AILA as an isolated product, but as a platform for further research in robotics.
To be more concrete, AILA is designed in a way so she can touch and handle a number of different objects safely, for example a bottle made of glass or a small box.
She can identify, grab, sort or transport those objects autonomously. AILA could, for example, fill up empty shelves in a super market one day or take care of problems in an assembly line in a factory by herself. (For orientation, AILA uses the laser range finders. To identify the objects in question, AILA uses the cameras installed in her head.)
In order for AILA to work properly, the objects she has to handle must have RFID tags, which are scanned by the RFID reader in her left hand and tell AILA what kind of object she’s dealing with (weight, fragility, what she needs to do with it etc.). Each of AILA’s arms are 5.5kg heavy, and she’s able to carry around objects weighing up to 8kg.
Here’s a video showing AILA in action:
Via Plastic Pals via Golem [GER]
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