China unveils world’s first ‘emotional’ robot that has ‘humanlike behaviour’ and is made to feel ‘happy, sad & angry’
CHINA has unveiled the world’s first “emotional” robot that has “humanlike behaviour” and is designed to feel “happy sad and angry”.
The marvellous machine – dubbed Guanghua No 1 – put on an impressive show, displaying a range of different facial expressions.
The bot was shown in all its glory at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference.
Developed by Fudan University in Shanghai the bot is around 165 cm tall and weighs about 62 kg.
This humanoid robot is “emotionally responsive, flexible, and sophisticated”, reports Interesting Engineering.
It comes with 45 intelligent joints that have a “hierarchical generative embodied brain model.”
This allows the robot to move its hands properly and walk with an upright posture.
It’s also equipped to handle four emotions happiness, anger, sadness, and joy on its facial screen.
The clever creators of the high-tec humanoid shared they developed it to meet the growing demands of China’s ageing population.
Gan Zhongxue, deputy dean of the Academy for Engineering & Technology of Fudan University said: “Our market research indicated that elderly care and health services are the most pressing areas for humanoid robot application.”
He added that their vision is to create a “health companion” capable of providing personalised and empathetic care for the elderly.
The primary cause of developing this robot was to address the emotional needs of the elderly.
Gan explained: “Providing care with an emotionless, mechanical entity would fail to offer the warmth akin to that of a family member. Genuine care necessitates emotional intelligence”.
Guanghua No 1 is the only humanoid robot developed by Fudan university, among the 18 humanoid robots which were showcased at WAIC this year.
The gadget’s emotional intelligence has been inspired by the brain’s motivation and dopamine reward mechanism.
It also utilizes multilevel coordinated incentive algorithms that generate humanlike perceptions and behaviours.
The robot has been in the development phase for the last two years and was designed by a team of experts from mechanics, biology, engineering, computer science, and big data.
They are already planning to release a trial version by the end of 2024 and are now conducting extensive tests in provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang.
The team are also testing the robots for improved accuracy, safety.
These tests include seeing if the robots can perform tasks like assisting the elderly out of bed or taking them to the restroom.