Hugh is an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time ...

designed by William Sachiti and Ariel Ladegaard at Aberystwyth University. Funded by Academy of Robotics in the UK, the robot was first publicized in February 2016. Hugh was to stand at 1.4 metres tall and weigh 60 pounds, and its core function would be to help users in locating and navigating them to desired books in the library. Hugh never left the prototyping stage and is currently not in use in any Aberystwyth University library.

Technology

Hugh runs the

linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

based

Robot Operating System Robot Operating System (ROS or ros) is an open-source robotics middleware suite. Although ROS is not an operating system (OS) but a set of software frameworks for robot software development, it provides services designed for a heterogeneous comp ...

(ROS) with a combination of modules built on top combining voice search through Google APIs, and navigation. The robot uses a mini lidar for location and prebuilt maps of library layouts.

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

from

Ex Libris Group Ex Libris Group is an Israeli software company that develops integrated library systems and other library software. The company is headquartered in Jerusalem, and has ten other offices around the world. In October 2015, Ex Libris was acquired b ...

gives the robot a catalogue of up to several million books which it can locate and navigate a user to. The screen doubling up as a touch-screen, allows Hugh to express himself through several facial expressions and display results.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.iamhugh.co.uk/ Service robots