Emotionally Intelligent Social Robot Built By An IIT Alumni

There are many movies which have shown robots that can walk, talk and behave like a human being. Well, meet Charlie, a robot designed by Rajiv Khosla, an Indian Institute of Technology alumni and a professor from La Trobe University, Australia. Charlie can walk, talk, sing and can even detect how a person feels. The robot has been designed to assist people with problems like dementia, autism, brain injury and other illness.

Engineers and researchers have so far tried to make robots behave like animals or insects or have taken a lot of inspiration from them to design robots, like bats, lizards, cockroaches, etc. Robots have also been designed to be similar to humans, but Charlie here is considered to be one of the most advanced robots built. The 20cm tall robot can actually perceive a person’s needs through their moods and facial expressions. The robot has been programmed to speak 11 languages so far including Hindi, Tamil and Chinese. Mr. Khosla says that these robots can be personalized based on language, culture and lifestyle and hopes that this can be a solution to achieve cross culture understanding.

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Mr. Khosla in a video gave an example of using this technology with old age people. With robots like these, Mr. Khosla believes he can make senior citizens more independent. The robots will help the senor citizens to connect to the society by connecting them to their relatives which will be done via the Internet. It can send emails to their friends and family and also monitor their health.

The researches are looking for business partners who will be interested in exploring the application of these robots in India. The market price is estimated at Rs. 90,000.​