E-commerce giant Alibaba has launched an innovative
service robot meant to deliver foods, drinks and other items in a hotel
setting. The new robots are reminders of how fast robots are getting deployed
and Alibaba Artificial Intelligence (AI) Labs is set to play a big role in the
commercialization of robots. This is because the new service robots will be
launched for use in the hospitality sector next month (October) thus raising
the stakes for service delivery in the sector.
The robots were showcased at Alibaba’s annual Cloud
Computing Conference 2018 which was held at the company’s headquarters in
China. They are all developed by the company’s AI product development arm known
as Alibaba AI Labs. The service robot will be able to deliver meals and take
laundry to guests. There is also the ability to communicate with guests via
voice command, touch and hand gesture. This is made possible by the integration
of AliGenie, the same software that drives Alibaba A.I. Labs’ smart speaker,
Tmall Genie.
The robot has an aluminium casing with multi-sensor
data functionality and parallel computing for lightning-quick responses. It
also includes a semantic map, an autonomous navigation system to identify
obstacles, communication systems to control elevators, and identity
verification via facial-recognition technology. The device is less than one
metre tall and can move at a speed of one metre per second. Alibaba A.I. Labs says it will assess the
robot’s suitability for other areas, including hospitals, restaurants and
office services after its being tried successfully at a hotel.