LG Outlines Its New Futuristic Robots At CES
This week at CES 2017 in Las Vegas, LG Electronics will showcase a new lineup of intelligent robots.
The lineup includes a home robot that doubles as a smart home gateway and intelligent home notification center. LG is also taking the power of IoT and smart technology outside of the home with robots designed for use in airports and other public spaces.
Hub Robot
LG's Hub Robot is connected to other smart appliances in the home. It uses Amazon Alexa's voice recognition technology to complete household tasks such as turning on the air conditioner or changing a dryer cycle with simple verbal commands. The Hub Robot is equipped with an interactive display that can showcase a wide variety of information such as images of contents inside of the refrigerator and recipes, complete with step-by-step audio instructions. Additionally, the Hub Robot offers everyday consumer conveniences such as the ability to play music, set alarms, create reminder memos and provide weather and traffic updates.
With its anthropomorphic design, LG's Hub Robot can interact with the entire family in a variety of different ways. It can move and swivel in place, as well as express a wide range of emotions by displaying a face on its display. The Hub Robot is designed to respond to consumers using body language, such as nodding its head when answering simple questions, and is always aware of activities inside the home, such as when family members leave, come home and go to bed. And because the Hub Robot is able to distinguish different family members' faces with its camera, it can be programmed with a different greeting for each family member.
The Hub Robot works best when placed in common areas of the house where family members tend to gather, such as the kitchen or the living room. To complement the Hub Robot, LG will also introduce mini robots that can be placed in other rooms in the house. Also equipped with a visual display, these mini robots are extensions of the Hub Robot and can perform many of the same functions.
Airport Guide Robot
LG's expansion of its intelligent services ecosystem reaches beyond just the home. The Airport Guide Robot - soon to be seen in Seoul's Incheon International Airport - is an intelligent information assistant for travelers, answering questions in four languages: English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. With a simple scan of a passenger's ticket, the robot can provide detailed information about a flight's boarding time and gate location, and even the weather of a traveler's destination city. The airport robot offers directions to destinations inside the airport, along with estimated distances and walking times, and can even escort lost or late travelers to their gates, or any other airport location.
Airport Cleaning Robot
LG's Airport Cleaning Robot is a super-sized robot vacuum equipped with a large-capacity dust canister as well as multiple brushes and motors. Capable of cleaning everything from tiles to carpet floors, this robot is equipped with the latest in smart sensors and multiple cameras to ensure a performance in even the most crowded airports. Multiple sensors using light detection and ranging (LIDAR) as well as sensitive bumpers which detect obstacles are employed throughout. Thanks to the use of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technology, the robot is always aware of its location.
Lawn Mowing Robot
LG's Lawn Mowing Robot rounds out the company's lineup of robots at CES 2017. This robot benefits from years of development of the HOM-BOT vacuum cleaner to trim grass. Equipped with many of the sensors and bumpers found in the airport robot, the Lawn Mowing Robot recognizes its own location at every moment, as well as the location of every obstacle in sight, such as trees or hedges.