REEM-B, New Humanoid Robot Announced

Davide writes "There is a quite an interesting human size robot that comes from UAE, REEM-A. It has some interesting skills as dynamic walking (of course), object recognition, voice recognition, self localization and mapping, long battery life and face recognition. Recently, the development team announced that the second prototype, REEM-B, will be presented in February 2008. The second prototype has many improvements: a fingered hand with 12 motors, the ability to go up and down stairs, additional force sensors on the arms, ultrasonic range finders to avoid obstacles and a completely new look." Or, if you prefer something a bit cheaper, you could go with the $30 DIY Android.

Comments

But WHY?

[DynaSoar]

Does an airplane fly like a bird?
Does a submarine swim like a fish?
The human form has many characteristics that are less than optimal, especially for particular tasks.
Building something to mimic something else is to build in shortcomings, as well as make the design and implementation harder than it needs to be.

In "The Making of 2001" (IIRC), Arthur Clarke discussed the optimal design for a living thing, with the consideration that aliens would optimize themselves through genetic (or equivalent) engineering. The result was conical, mobile and facile in any direction, sensory organs up top and all the way around, and several other considerations. An optimal general design is just that, living or not, and this would serve as a far bettrer design for a robot. Of course robots with specific purposes should be built for that.