Iran is a prominent fixture in the news on account of its nuclear ambition and conflict with the West. It has, however, attracted the world's attention recently, not with any of these issues, but with a bit of robotic technology. The country just built its second humanoid robot and it was demonstrated Monday walking across a stage and doing several movements, including arm gestures and bending backwards.
The robot, called Surena III, was built by a team of researchers at the University of Tehran to study challenges in robotics such as bipedal locomotion and robot-human interaction, among others. It is able to interact with humans through its vision, voice and speech modules, which run on custom software based on the Robot Operating System, Gizmag reported.
The team behind the robotic technology wants Surena III to also serve as an inspiration for students to pursue engineering careers as it symbolizes Iranian technological achievement and potential "in the direction of peace and humanity," Dr. Aghil Yousefi-Koma, leader of the Surena project, told Spectrum IEEE.
Surena III is still way behind robots developed in other countries such as Japan's Pepper, for instance, who can serve as a human companion or Yamaha's motorcycle-riding Motobot as reported previously by HNGN.
The Iranian robot can only move 7 inches per second. It uses Microsoft's Kinect sensor for its "sight" and runs on an open source software. Its developers, however, are optimistic about its future. They aim to finally upgrade it into a useful mechanized assistant in times of disasters.
Check out the robot in action below.
