Home help robot under development

Monday 27 October 2008

The Delft, Eindhoven and Twente universities of technology are working with electronics concern Philips to develop software for a so-called humanoid robot which will be able to be used to look after the elderly and carry out household chores in 2050, reported the Volkskrant at the weekend.

The hardware for the 1,20 meter tall robot, called TUlip, is ready and scientists are now working on software so that it can learn to walk, communicate and think, says the paper.

Philips’ robotics expert Thom Warmerdam tells the paper that a simplified version of the humanoid robot which could do simple household tasks ‘such as picking up the newspaper or fetching a beer from the fridge’ could be on the market in 10 years.

The consumer price for a domestic robot will depend on how many are produced but, says Warmerdam, will be similar to the cost of a car. But he adds that it is more likely that the technological knowledge gained on the project will be used to make robotic arms for people who are missing limbs or ‘eyes’ for security cameras in the shorter term.

‘It is the first time in the Netherlands that there is such close national cooperation in working on a humanoid robot that can compete with humanoids from other countries,’ Dragan Kostic, robotics lecturer at Eindhoven University, tells the Volkskrant.

His colleague Ben Krose from Amsterdam University agrees: ‘We are far behind the US and Japan on an international level.’

© DutchNews.nl

Comments have been closed for this article.