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NAO

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Humanoid Robotics: A Reference

Abstract

In this chapter, NAO, the most sold humanoid robot throughout the world, is introduced. Originally designed to be a domestic companion, this 58 cm tall bipedal robot was first adopted by researchers and educators. These academic communities greatly appreciate using NAO as a platform on which they can easily develop applications. Thanks to its humanoid shape, NAO changes the focus of robotic research development and highlights how human-machine interaction is a major issue for the acceptability of the robots in our daily environment. After a brief history of NAO, the kinematics, the actuators, the sensors, and the architecture of the robot will be presented. On top of this hardware, a software environment is also available. It is based on NAOqiOS, a specific framework which gives the user access to the robot’s resources: data from the sensors and control data of the actuators as well as high-level features like walking, face recognition, speech recognition, and dialogue capabilities. The services provided by NAOqiOS are accessible in Python and C++ but also through Choregraphe, a graphical programming interface that offers a very intuitive way to develop robotic applications without deeper programming skills. Some of the applications already available on NAO are presented below. The future applications of companion robots will require tackling technological challenges as well as answering ethical questions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SoftBank Robotics, 43 rue du Colonel Pierre Avia, 75015, Paris, France

    Rodolphe Gelin

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  1. Rodolphe Gelin
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Correspondence to Rodolphe Gelin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Intuitive Surgical , Sunnyvale, California, USA

    Ambarish Goswami

  2. Singapore, Singapur, Singapore

    Prahlad Vadakkepat

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© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Gelin, R. (2017). NAO. In: Goswami, A., Vadakkepat, P. (eds) Humanoid Robotics: A Reference. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7194-9_14-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7194-9_14-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-7194-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-7194-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EngineeringReference Module Computer Science and Engineering

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