NAO

NAO was developed by Aldebaran Robotics, a French robotics company headquartered in Paris. It  is a programmable, 58cm tall humanoid robot with the following key components. Body with 25 degrees of freedom (DOF) whose key elements are electric motors and actuators. Sensor network, including 2 cameras, 4 microphones, sonar rangefinder, 2 IR emitters and receivers, 1 inertial board, 9 tactile sensors, and 8 pressure sensors.

Various communication devices, including voice synthesizer, LED lights, and 2 high-fidelity speakers. Intel ATOM 1,6 ghz CPU (located in the head) that runs a Linux kernel and supports Aldebaran’s proprietary middleware (NAOqi). Second CPU (located in the torso)27,6-watt-hour battery that provides NAO with 1.5 or more hours of autonomy, depending on usage. This set-up allows the simultaneous reception of two video streams, increasing its speed and performance in face-and-object recognition, even under poor-lighting conditions. NAO is capable of isolating and recognizing a specific word within a sentence or a conversation.

NAO plays soccer, helps with research, works at hospitals, performs comedy routines, and even grooms cats. It was also used to work with autism children. Some studies showed that children with autism achieved a 30 percent increase in social interactions and better verbal communication when a robot is in the same room.

Aldebaran Robotics built a variety of apps for use in the classroom, to help kids learn about emotions and body language and let them practice imitation, turn taking, and other social skills. So as we can see NAO is quite busy robot with a big hart!