How is Alex, the humanoid robot who will serve the public in a Russian municipal office | Can perform 600 human gestures

A new humanoid robot named Alexis was presented by the company promotional robot during the international exhibition “Innoprom” which took place from July 6 to 9 in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia. The robot will start to serve the public in the coming months in a multifunctional center for government and municipal services in Yekaterinburg.

Promobot’s Development Director, Oleg Kivokurstsez, explained what Alex’s job will consist of: “The client arrives in front of an empty window, where the robot performs the necessary manipulations with the documents. Alex is connected to other devices and services, so he can scan the documents and form a statement based on them. The visitor then signs the papers, the robot scans them and sends them to the information system. In addition, the machine can advise on services, print coupons and memos ”.

Alex can also replicate over 600 variants of human micromimics using technology and design developed by the company.. It allows you to copy a person’s facial expressions, such as eye movement, eyebrow, lip movement, communication, and answering questions.

However, even though he even has artificial skin with pores and wrinkles, Alex still performs some unnatural movements and has a large round camera on his chest that reveals him as a machine.

The chairman of the board of directors of the company, Alexei Yuzhakov, said six months ago that the aim of this initiative is generate greater confidence in machines that perform certain types of work that require social attitudes.

“It turned out that a robotic person received the most positive feedback from customers. That is, the ideal formula for service delivery is the appearance of a person plus communication via a robot script. A man will never speak like a robot, but a robot that looks like a man is just around the corner, ”Yuzhakov said.

Alex’s prototype is based on Alexey Yuzhakov himself, who had 11 silicone prints of his face taken in order to scan a 3D model, where facial expressions were designed.

The authors of the initiative clarified that the faces of robots are always larger because the silicone is thicker than human skin, while they appear more mature because there is no muscle tone.