Modulus robot

When the first "Modulus" prototype had been realized, the company asked Isao Hosoe, a Japanese designer who has been living and working in Milan for many years, to study its "body-work".

The "Modulus" robots could have abilities such as a phonemes synthesizer, voice recognition, infrared communication, etc., making it suitable for performing many functions ranging from helping to teach children to assisting the handicapped or invalids.

Hosoe hit on the right appearance by studying human expressions and gestures, bearing in mind that a domestic robot needs to be appealing on account of its proximity to man.

It comes with a small infrared Instrument for connecting it to another remote control device or for interacting with the major home and personal computers.

The simplest attachments which can be connected to the Base unit are a vacuum cleaner and a plotter-mechanism that uses felt pens, etc., to produce drawings of considerable precision.

One of the components allow the robot to signal the presence of smoke, gas, water, and intruders; at the first sign of danger it informs the computer or triggers a siren or preset vocal message.

It is not surprising then if Isao Hosoe, who designed "Modulus" together with Ann Marinelli, Donato Greco, and Alessio Pozzoli, also received special advice from his two children, ten-year-old Takeo and fifteen-year-old Taro.