7/10/2023 0 Comments Robot bartender cruise shipHowever, the team soon realised that the robot was so sophisticated that it would not work for a commercial cruise ship setting. The iCub is the size of a five-year-old child, and can sit, walk and manipulate objects. “They have developed, I think, the most sophisticated robot on the earth today, called the iCub,” says Pronzati, who himself studied robotics in Genoa. The journey to understanding how to create a robotic barman with two arms, a body and a head led them to the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), in Genoa. The challenge of finding the right partners “It’s a completely different challenge,” he says. It was clear to them that creating a human-like operation was poles apart from an automation perspective. For inspiration, the team started by researching the technology around Royal Caribbean’s Bionic Bar, which has two mechanical arms that make drinks to order. “He really wanted to go a step further into robotics and automation and have a humanoid which could offer a kind of humanoid to human interaction, elevating the bar experience.”Īs well as a voice, Rob needed to be a fully-functional barman, and show his sympathetic ear with facial expressions and a personality. “An express request from Mr Vago was not only to have an industrial robotic arm shaking cocktails,” he explains. “He’s always passionate about technology and innovation as a way of elevating the customer experience,” explains Pronzati, which led them to look at the potential of robotic automation as a way of offering something new and different on board. The journey started with Executive Chairman Pierfrancesco Vago’s zeal for technology. It’s still quite unbelievable that we were able to do it.” “Being able to progress in such a hard time of our lives has been a huge challenge. “This is not me, it’s my team and all of us together,” he says. A pandemic and the ensuing global shutdown was not accounted for in the project timeline, but Pronzati calls the creation of Rob his best achievement. The project to develop Rob – which is believed to be the world’s first humanoid robot bartender at sea – started in 2015. Developing a humanoid robot barman for cruise “I’m very happy that we made it and that we’re ready to welcome the first guests on board,” Pronzati says.
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