MIT Nexi MDS

Nexi MDS is an experimental robot from the MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group. MIT calls it a mobile, dexterous, social (MDS) robot, and its April 2008 announcement describes a complete mobile manipulator with an expressive face and hands for handling objects. The group led development with Prof. Rod Grupen of UMass Amherst and two MIT spin-off companies, and the original funding came from a U.S. Office of Naval Research award.

Sensing combines video cameras as eyes, a microphone array as ears, and a 3-D infrared camera with a laser rangefinder for tracking people, objects and voices and for indoor navigation. The base was designed to ride on self-balancing wheels, but the early build used a set of supportive wheels to stay statically stable.

MIT's announcement gives no height, weight, top speed or battery figures. A later MIT-authored research paper describes Nexi as approximately 48 inches tall, with two 6-DoF arms and two 2-DoF hands. A 2009 article summarized by Robaid describes the earlier mechanical breakdown differently, including a 5-DoF lower arm and hand. The entry therefore leaves total DoF unset and records only the directly stated hand figure from the research paper.

The sources reviewed show no current development, sales or successor. The entry is therefore marked as discontinued and kept as a historical research platform.