Personal Robot Is An AI Assistant On Wheels

The age of personal robotic assistants is upon us, and soon enough they'll gravitate from our phone and laptops to dedicated devices able to roll from place to place, offering up help when needed and tending to small tasks we don't have time to do ourselves. The idea is an old one, and though the technology to pull it off is much newer it isn't unheard of at this point. We've seen free-moving assistant robots in the past, and here to challenge them all is the Personal Robot.

Despite its generic name, Personal Robot has a lot to offer its users, not the least of which is mobility via wheels on the base. A human animation on the display adds a touch of personality, but most important is the artificial intelligence, which lets the robot do everything from recognize faces and emotions to employ deep learning.

There's object recognition, a 3D depth camera, support for voice commands, a noise-cancelling microphone, algorithms for understanding natural language, and more. Users can tell Personal Robot to, for example, set an alarm or play music. There's support for communicating with connected devices, which allows the robot to be integrated into an existing smart home.

The company behind the Personal Robot — Robotbase — is looking to fund its project through Kickstarter. The maker's $50,000 goal has been exceeded, with $84,900 in pledges being raised thus far with 19 days remaining. You'll need to pledge $1,195 USD to get an early bird Personal Robot, which will ship this upcoming December.

SOURCE: Kickstarter