Engineered Arts Ltd is an English engineering, designer and manufacturer of

humanoid robot A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments and working alongside humans, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipeda ...

s based in

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, England. It was founded in October 2004 by Will Jackson.

History

The company was founded by Will Jackson in 2004. While working on exhibitions for London's

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, Industry (manufacturing), industry and Outline of industrial ...

in the 1990s, Jackson came upon the need for a machine that could explain concepts and ideas to people repetitively in an entertaining way and not to be nervous when talking to a group of people. In 2005, Jackson's work on the "Mechanical Theater" for The Eden Project would produce the company's first humanoid robot, RoboThespian Mark 1. The company's early work included, creative and science education projects for

Kew Gardens Kew Gardens is a botanical garden, botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botany, botanical and mycology, mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1759, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its li ...

in London,

Glasgow Science Centre Glasgow Science Centre is a visitor attraction located in the Clyde Waterfront Regeneration area on the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Queen Elizabeth II opened Glasgow Science Centre on 5 July 2001. It is one of Scotland's ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

and other non-robot work. After completing the installation of a robot theatre at Copernicus Science Centre in 2010 the decision was made to focus solely on robot hardware and software.

Products

Ameca

Ameca is a humanoid robot designed as a platform for

Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

research and human interaction applications. It was launched at CES in Las Vegas USA in January 2022. Its main focus on human-like expressions and range of facial movement. In its demonstration, it was made to mimic an operator's face using a mobile phone that had built-in LIDAR and used Apple's

ARKit ARKit is an application programming interface (API) for iOS, iPadOS and VisionOS which lets third-party developers build augmented reality apps, taking advantage of a device's camera, CPU, GPU, and motion sensors. The ARKit functionality is onl ...

tools.

Mesmer

Mesmer is a humanoid robot. Its key design feature is its face covered by a skin-like rubber, that can exhibit human-like expressions and characteristics. It was created and manufactured using 3D scans of human models taken in-house, allowing Engineered Arts to accurately mimic human bone form, skin texture, and emotions.

Robothespian

RoboThespian is an

interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but mo ...

animatronic An animatronic is a puppet controlled electronically to move in a fluent way. Animatronics are the modern adaptation of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films, video games and in theme park attractions. Anim ...

humanoid robot with LCD screens for eyes, powered by

Pneumatic motor A pneumatic motor (air motor), or compressed-air engine, is a type of motor which does mechanical work by expanding compressed air. Pneumatic motors generally convert the compressed-air energy to mechanical work through either linear or rotary ...

s, it and speaks more than 30 languages, and can be found on public display worldwide. It is tall, weighs in at , sports an aluminium chassis and a body shell made of

polyethylene terephthalate Polyethylene terephthalate (or poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibre, fibres for clothing, packaging, conta ...

plastic and its body offers over 30 axes of movement. Internally it uses a

Parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

processor for motor control. Over fifty are currently permanently installed worldwide, including: * NASA

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

, USA. * Questacon, National Science Museum of Australia * MUNCYT (Museo Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnología), National Science and Technology Museum in Spain * Parc Futuroscope, France. * Copernicus Science Centre, Poland (complete Theatre of Robots stage production, comprising 3 RoboThespians, integrated lighting, video projection, multi channel sound). * Parque de las Ciencias, Granada Spain. Early adopter of RT 2, and upgraded RT 3 later. * Israel's National Museum of Science, Technology & Space *

Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum Thinktank, Birmingham (formerly known as simply Thinktank) is a science museum in Birmingham, England. Opened in 2001, it is part of Birmingham Museums Trust and is located within the Millennium Point (Birmingham), Millennium Point complex on ...

* Carnegie Science Center * Aberdeen Science centre *

Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), since 2024, the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, is a science museum located in Chicago, Illinois, in Jackson Park (Chicago), Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborho ...

* W5 Belfast, Ireland Academic institutions, including: *

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

, USA. * University Central Florida, USA * Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK *

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, UK *

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based in Brighton on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieved university status in 1992. T ...

, UK *

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...

, Spain

Socibot

Socibot was a static torso with a projected face. It integrated the core technologies of RoboThespian but in a desktop- or kiosk-sized form-factor. with a projected computer-generated face and articulated neck a simple and affordable introduction to advanced robotics. This robot has been sold to places such as: Public installations: *

Putnam Museum The Putnam Museum and Science Center, originally Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, is a museum of history and natural science with an interactive science center in Davenport, Iowa, United States. The museum was founded in 1867 and was one of ...

, Iowa, USA * Parc Futuroscope, France * Espace des Sciences, France * Bal Robotov, Russia Academic institutions, including: * Bristol Robot Laboratory, UK *

University of Craiova The University of Craiova () is a public university located in Craiova, Romania. It was founded in 1947, initially with four institutes, in the Palace of Justice of Craiova. It is the largest university in the historical Oltenia province of Roma ...

, Romania * Nanyang Polytechnic, Singapore *

Coventry University Coventry University is a Public university, public research university in Coventry, England. The origins of Coventry University can be linked to the Coventry School of Art and Design, Coventry School of Design in 1843. It was known as Lancheste ...

, UK

Custom robots

Ai-Da

Ai-Da is a

based on the Robothespian platform. Completed in 2019, Ai-Da contains no conversational AI capabilities and is tele-operated using Engineered Arts ''Tin Man'' software. Its core function is creating drawings, paintings, and sculptures, with the use of a bionic hand and ocular cameras. She is named after

Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), also known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-pur ...

Dr Kalam

A variation on the standard Mesmer, this robot was modelled after 11th President of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam ( ; 15 October 193127 July 2015) was an Indian aerospace scientist and statesman who served as the president of India from 2002 to 2007. Born and raised in a Muslim family in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Kala ...

for display at Military Might, Chandrapur,

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

Fred

''Fred'' was created as part of the PR campaign to promote the TV series ''

Westworld ''Westworld'' is an American science fiction dystopia media franchise that began with the Westworld (film), 1973 film ''Westworld'', written and directed by Michael Crichton. The film depicts a technologically advanced Wild West, Wild-West-th ...

''. The robot employed ''Tin-Man'' technology to interact with customers in a London pub.

Technologies

Rather than use an "off the shelf"

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

such as ROS, Engineered Arts uses its own OS called "Tritium". It is designed to make their robots easy to program by non-technical people and operated from any location. Tinman a

telepresence Telepresence is the appearance or sensation of a person being present at a place other than their true location, via telerobotics or video. Telepresence requires that the users' senses interact with specific stimuli in order to provide the feeli ...

program that allows a robot's owners to communicate with an audience via the robot's "personality", while themselves being remote. IOServe provides a generic way to link and program all robot hardware and runs under Linux. It has the ability to capture motion data and replay it and modify existing motion sequences on the fly, including an interface to the open source 3D program Blender.

In popular culture

* A projected-face version of Robothespian performed alongside two humans in a play called The Uncanny Valley, which made its New York City premiere at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn in 2015. * A projected-face version of Robothespian performed in a play called 'Spillikin' at Pleasance Theatre in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland in March 2017. * The 2015

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

movie ''Robots-3D'', Robothespian hosted the film and was voiced by actor

Simon Pegg Simon John Pegg (; born 14 February 1970) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the UK as the co-creator of the Channel 4 sitcom ''Spaced'' (1999–2001), directed by Edgar Wright. He and Wright co-wrote the ...

. * In April 2022, Engineered Arts created a

doppelgänger A doppelgänger ( ), sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart. In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or p ...

of YouTuber Tom Scott.

References

External links

* {{Subject bar, wikt=robot, commons=Robots, b=Robotics, n=no, q=no, s=no, v=Anthropomorphic Robotics, species=no Manufacturing companies established in 2004 Technology companies established in 2004 Robotics companies Science and technology in Cornwall