Justine: The Italian Coffee-Making Robot

Posted 20 Feb 2008 at 23:18 UTC by steve

An ANSA.it article describes Justine, a robot developed by the DEXMART team of EU researchers at Naples University. Justine's arms and hands are precise enough to duplicate some of the movements of human hands. In particular, Justine can make instant coffee. This may not sound like much but researcher Bruno Siciliano explains, "'We want to develop a system of two-handed manipulation, equipped with sensors that make the robot conscious of its surroundings and the people in its working space." Making coffee is just the beginning for the DEXMART team. They hope their research will lead to robots that can more easily manipulate objects in common human environments like the home. Their approach is have the robot abstract its action using symbolic representation of goals. Check YouTube for some video of Justine in action.

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Another Coffee-Making robot, posted 21 Feb 2008 at 05:17 UTC by Daniel Casner » (Journeyer)

Here's a video of our (Anybots) (tele-operated) robot making coffee from grounds using a press: Monty Serves Coffee (third video on the page) and a few other tasks requiring both smart compliant actuation and strength. While we're not attempting to solve the problems autonomously as Dexmart is, the actuation control issues are precisely the same.

And before long, a Starbots on every corner, posted 21 Feb 2008 at 18:52 UTC by MDude » (Journeyer)

I wonder if there are plans to put something like to work at a coffee shop. Although taking orders might be a problem, you could have a kiosk set up with maybe a coin/bill receiver like on vending machines, so the bot would only have to make the coffee and serve it. I just hope it can make hot chocolate too, I've never liked coffee (except for dipping vanilla wafers).

Also, any paticular reason DEXMART can't just stand for "DEXterous and sMART"? Aall those other qualifyers seem to be dependant on or requirements to dextrousness and smartness.