At Your Service

He weighs 120 kg and looks like a cross between a highly polished version of ET and a futuristic man-machine: his name is "Rollin' Justin," and he's a robot. The two-armed, humanoid service robot with a moveable stereo camera head can be controlled by spoken commands, led around by the hand, or left to move around the room on his own. He can serve tea, clean, prepare simple dishes and lift heavy objects. And given the right command, Justin will even dance.

Together with the Care-O-bot® 3 and the technological platform "Everyday Life" from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), "Rollin' Justin," who was developed as a research platform by the German Aerospace Center (DLR), is one of the prototypes for a new generation of service robots.

Care-O-bot® 3 was one of the stars at the recent Japanese robotics trade fair International Robot Exhibition (iRex). At iRex, Germany was represented by Germany Trade & Invest, IPA, and the robot manufacturers Schunk and KUKA Roboter, among others. The trade fair featured household helpers that vacuum, sweep the floor and even mow the lawn.

Robot assistant in health care

At present, robots are mainly utilized in industrial production for tasks such as welding or assembly. However, IPA researchers are certain that robots will play an active role in helping people with their daily tasks in the near future - as servers, assistants in health care and geriatrics, entertainers or cleaning machines. "However, if robots are to help humans, they must specialize in more than one task," says Mike Mayer of the robot manufacturing company Schunk.

Germany holds 43 percent of the European robotics market, making the country the largest market in Europe and the third-largest worldwide. Experts predict that 12.1 million service robots will be produced between 2008 and 2010 - an enormous market.