Written on May 28, 2008 – 10:18 am | by Bogdan Alex |

The Japanese (who else?) were first to show off a human-like android. I’m not referring to Asimo here… he’s cute, but I’m talking about androids that imitate the appearance of a human. Over the past few years, the ways of making artificial body parts and skin have rapidly evolved and today we are able to see some outstanding models that make you think for a moment as to whether they could be real persons or not. Just recently, AI Robotics, a group of two young guys, one French and one Japanese, has come up with a dubious android project dubbed Lisa.

Lisa seems to be a little too real if you ask me and allow me to express my doubt on the authenticity of her looks. Anyhow, on the official AI Robotics site, there are several pictures of Lisa in a more android-like state. Compare those pics with the way Lisa looks in the following clip (I personally think they used a real person for this commercial as well as for another one on the official page just to attract the interest of uninformed people):

Apart from Lisa’s striking appearance, the inner workings include an innovative RKS system that emulates the most important human senses: touch, sight and hearing. The tactile sense is implemented through thousands of micro-sensors found in the artificial skin. Each of these is designed to provide information on temperature, proximity and touch. The gathered information helps Lisa recognize her owner or any other person from a group of individuals.Lisa’s audio capabilities are based on an advanced voice recognition technology using sound sensors placed near the ears that send the arriving signals to the brain-like computer that controls all functions. The audio sensors record the tonality and amplitude of the sounds and split the signals into syllables. Lisa is able to differentiate the voice tones and detect questions, excitement and sorrow by associating tonality, amplitude and syllable recognition. I wonder if she can detect irony as well.

The sense of sight is enabled via 2 micro cameras directly connected to the “brain.” These allow Lisa to compute large amounts of visual data and at the same time follow the movements of objects or recognize faces and important things. The guys from AI Robotics explain that Lisa’s visual sense is empowered through the division of the perceived scene into levels like background and foreground, and then each level is segmented into zones of interest. The final step implies the form recognition, color recognition, gesture recognition, analysis and association with the database.

For the movement part, AI Robotics used a dozen of independent engines that split each movement into smaller movements in order to be made more natural. These engines interact with each other via a transmission device and can move on the X, Y, Z axes.

Lisa is not a true AI, as it needs to update wirelessly from the central database, plus it requires continuous training. However, Lisa is claimed to be acting much like a real person, and AI Robotics claim that the android could prove to be the perfect woman.

On the official AI Robotics page you can already pre-order your personalized Lisa android. Also, check the official page for an interview with the two founders.