A new development on the world's first successful humanoid was revealed recently in the United Kingdom. The robot, named Ameca, had already been a topic for numerous improvements in the last quarter of 2021.
Among the latest and final touch that the developers pushed for Ameca was some facial expressions that are commonly related to emotions, such as taking umbrage following an unwanted nose poke. In one stunning scenario, Ameca reached its temper limit when its developers continued to annoy the robot, and due to the full extent of insult, grabbed the hands of the experts and shoved it away from its face.
AI Humanoid Ameca Identifies Personal Space; Shoves Annoying Hands Off Its Face
Alongside the first human-like facial expressions of the said robot, Ameca was already developed with partial skills to correlate its emotions to the physical response it intends to. According to a report by DailyMail, the world's most advanced artificial humanoid was at the brink of achieving its own 'personal space.' This idea followed due to the expression that was unexpected from Ameca, which made annoying finger pokes on its face stop and shoved away.
By taking umbrage because of its developers' nose poke experiment, the AI-powered 'I-Robot' lookalike Ameca showed one of its new set of skills that is more elevated than the standard facial expressions it showcased on the first week of December.
In the new Ameca development, the experts said that the humanoid is already reaching a capability of reacting when other people try to enter its own personal space. The researchers admitted that they absolutely 'freaked out' when they observed Ameca's reactions after they invaded its personal space, even if they were already used to its previous human-like improvements.
The team responsible for adding the new features on Ameca was the Cornwall-based AI tech firm, Engineered Arts. Although there were already numerous upgrades relayed on the humanoid, the firm does not plan to release any figures related to the cost of Ameca's development.
Engineered Arts are positive that their innovation poured into Ameca will be among the first few advancements of the century that will lead and elevate the AI and robotics industry to the next level. The experts behind the research said that Ameca was specifically designed as the first model that would serve as a platform for numerous ideas concerning other robotics-based technologies. In addition, the firm believes that Ameca is the perfect creation of a robotic platform that could express human-like interaction on its own.
Ameca: Future Platform of AI and Robotics
Engineered Arts added that they present their innovations to provide the robotics community with a modular, reliable, and convenient-to-upgrade technology.
For those who already follow the company's robotic studies and application, Ameca was a successor of the first humanoid created by the company. The old model is called 'Thespian,' which was brought to life back in 2005.
Among the next developments that Engineered Arts will undergo will be Ameca's walking skills. The firm mentioned in the report that a ton of research from the past is still not able to suffice any techniques possible to make a fully walking humanoid. In mid-December, Engineered Arts released a separate AI-powered 'Mesmer' machine called Adran, which could simulate 22 various facial expressions using near-human movements of its eyes and mouth.
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