The Mirokaï robots are designed for tasks where social interaction with humans is required. | Credit: Enchanted Tools
The Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, or ISIR, has received the first delivery of Enchanted Tools’ Miroka robot. Enchanted Tools is a French startup attempting to bring a new social robot to market that is cute and engaging.
We first reported about Enchanted Tools at CES 2023 in Las Vegas, when we received a private demonstration of Mirokaï (the plural of Miroka).
The company was founded in 2021 and showed off its prototype after only 12 months of research and development. Miroka has a humanoid torso with agile hands and arms along with an animated face designed to be cute and engaging.
Enchanted Tools built the system kinematically around a ball-bot. While this was a risky design choice, it has now reached the milestone of becoming the first commercially available ball-bot based robot solution.
“We are proud to announce the delivery of our first robot to ISIR, a milestone for Enchanted Tools. This moment symbolizes not only the maturity of our prototype, but also the strength of our partnership with ISIR, a pillar of innovation in robotics,” said Jérôme Monceaux, CEO of Enchanted Tools. “Seeing the Mirokaï in action at this prestigious institute is tangible proof of our dedication to advancing the frontiers of robotics and helping shape the future.”
Mirokaï use multiple artificial intelligences to interact with users, orient themselves autonomously, and perform logistical tasks in contact with untrained users.
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Mirokaï accompanies an imaginary world
Enchanted Tools has created an imaginary world around the Mirokaï. It’s not clear yet how this backstory contributes to the commercial success of the robot. Unlike a company like Disney that can build a physical robot based on its deep catalog of on-screen heroes, the company is attempting to backfill an origin story for the Mirokaï to lower barriers to engagement with robots.
However, the success of Mirokaï will come not from the popularity of any animated features, but rather from the capabilities of the robot to do real work in the real world.
Enchanted Tools deployed its first commercial Mirokai mobile robot at ISIR. | Credit: Enchanted tools
ISIR is a real partner for Enchanted Tools
ISIR, the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics, is a Joint Research Unit (UMR 7222) under the supervision of Sorbonne University, CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research), and Inserm (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research). ISIR focuses on autonomous machines and their interactions with humans.
Working in multi-disciplinary teams, ISIR researchers are creating devices such as drones, microgrippers, bionic prostheses, social robots, and surgical robot arms. It is also working on AI and mixed reality. The institute’s goal is to develop technologies to meet major challenges in areas such as healthcare, the industry of the future, transport, and personal services.
The research version of Mirokaï will enable ISIR to contribute to the development of interactive mobile manipulators, said Enchanted Tools. It specified three fields of multidisciplinary research:
- Interactive programming: This examines how a non-expert user can program Mirokaï through demonstration and verbal explanations of the tasks to be performed.
- Low-level control: This includes synchronized control of the robot’s 22 actuators based on the whole-body control principle.
- Human-robot interaction: The objective is to integrate interactive behaviors into the robot so it can adapt to the user for fluid, or natural, interaction.
“Thanks to the support of the Ile de France Region, CNRS Sciences Informatiques, and INSERM, we now have a unique platform that is the envy of many foreign laboratories,” said Guillaume Morel, head of the Miroka project at ISIR. “The partnership with Enchanted Tools has only just begun; we’re just a few hundred meters from each other and will be working together over the next few years on a wide range of subjects.”
“It’s a win-win partnership, giving ISIR a major boost to its activities in interactive mobile manipulation, and enabling Enchanted Tools, thanks to the projects we’re starting up together and our agreements, to rapidly transfer our research advances for even more effective future products,” he added.
Enchanted Tools said it intends to continue delivering its robots to other customers through the end of 2024. Mirokaï will play a key role not only in research, but also in applications across diverse sectors such as events, hospitality, in-store service, and especially healthcare.
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