One of the stars of CeBIT 2011 is RoboThespian, an entertainment robot from the Engineered Arts, UK.
The robot, which drew crowds and a steady procession of TV cameras on March 1, grew out of a 2005 project to construct robotic actors. The development team soon found people wanted to interact with the robot, so it spent the next two years adding interaction. It's also been given a more lifelike form of movement. "He's designed as a communications tool," said Will Jackson, director of Engineered Arts. "It's a way of interfacing to your data in a much more humanly accessible way."
The company, based in the small English town of Penryn in Cornwall, has already installed 20 of the robots in science centers around the world. They can be found in the UK's ThinkTank, Germany's Phaeno, Questcon in Australia and Macau Science Center. NASA has just taken one for the Kennedy Space Center.
"It's designed in a human form. It very closely matches the human body proportions and it's able to move fast and in a fluid way like a person, which is important. If you want to communicate with people, you have to move like a person."
Engineered Arts sells or rents the robot. Prices begin at £36 500, TechWorld reports.
Armenian companies – Lime Tech and Nork Information-Analytical Center – are also participating in the tech fair.
