Osaka University ERICA

ERICA is a conversational android developed by a research group led by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, working with Kyoto University and ATR. Osaka University announced her on 3 August 2015 as a research platform for autonomous conversational robots. Unlike androids modelled on real people, her appearance is made from computer graphics, which the group says gives her a human-like presence along with a robot's friendliness.

The Ishiguro Lab page lists ERICA at 166 cm standing height, with 44 degrees of freedom across the head, neck, both arms and waist, and pneumatic actuators. Her sensing includes two cameras in the eyes and two microphones in the ears, plus a multimodal system with distance-image sensors, a 16-channel microphone array and a camera that tracks people's positions, expressions and speech. Speech is synthesised with VoiceText.

Her conversational software combines voice recognition, movement generation and robot control, and the release says she can hold a natural conversation in limited situations. The group plans to use ERICA to develop autonomous conversational androids. The release makes no statement about commercial sale or outside access.