26/05/2015 Robot Marvin

The word robot was coined by Czech playwrite Karel Caprek, it derived from the Czech word robota which means forced labour. Robots have evolved so much over the years, they are regarded as useful assets.

The Institute of Aritificial Intelligence at the University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg - Weingarten have been developing a robot known as Marvin, his sole purpose is to help those with physical disabilities. The main goals for the research project AsRoBe (assistive robots for people with physical disabilities), is to find out what type of support can be provided to people with physical disabilities, as well as how robots are accepted and how people with disabilities can interact with a robot. Robot Marvin is designed to be functional rather than fashionable. What sets Robot Marvin apart from other robots is his linear guide, he has the ability to move his arm from a height of 40cm up to 1.7m. He is able to pick objects from the ground or reach up to a 2m height shelf. This is highly beneficial to wheelchair users.

For the speech synthesis component, the University selected CereProc's SDK with Alex. The University shared their view on CereProc's SDK, "We chose CereVoice because it has an API for C++ and Python, runs well on Ubuntu Linux, is well documented, is easy to integrate and has a very good German Synthesis".