Beijing held 2016 World Robot Conference, where the world's leading manufacturers showed off their newest high-tech creations designed to make human life easier. Mechanical helpers surround us everywhere. Here are the most unusual ones created.
Some robots were created to assist surgeons during operations. This one, designed by China’s Siasun Robot and Automation Corporation, simulates the use of a medical instrument on a model of a human skeleton at the World Robot Conference in Beijing on October 21, 2016.
Pepper is a hospitable humanoid companion jointly invented in 2014 by French Aldebaran Robotics and Japanese SoftBank Group Corp. Such robots were “hired” as receptionists by the CHR Citadel hospital centers in Liege and AZ Damiaan in Ostend, Belgium to guide and inform visitors.
London-based Moley Robotics created the world's first robotic kitchen that will cook for you. In this photo, the kitchen robot cooks food for visitors during the first Consumer Electronics Show in Asia held in Shanghai on May 26, 2015.
Guide robot Tawabo, produced by Japan's security company Alsok, is seen among people at the Tokyo Tower observation floor in Tokyo on August 1, 2012. The 1.6 meter tall robot weighs 200 kilos and can provide information in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese vocally and on a digital display.
Some mechanical helpers were designed to ease wine industry work. A picture taken on September 13, 2012 near Chalon-sur-Saone shows the Wall-Ye V.I.N. robot being used in vineyards. The robot, brainchild of these two Burgundy-based inventors, Christophe Millot and Guy Julien, is one of the robots being developed around the world aimed at vineyards struggling to find the labor they need.
Aiko Chihira, a very human-like robot was unveiled by Japanese electronics giant Toshiba at the CEATEC electronics trade show in Chiba, suburban Tokyo on October 7, 2014. Aiko not only looks, moves and speaks Japanese as humanly as you can imagine, but is also really good at sign language.
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© AP Photo / Stephan Savoia
HitchBOT, a Canadian hitchhiking robot was created by David Harris Smith and Frauke Zeller. In 2014, the robotic traveler gained international attention for successfully hitchhiking across Canada and Europe, but in 2015 an attempt to hitchhike across the US ended shortly after the robot was destroyed by vandals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Panasonic’s miniature green robot Evolta created by Tomotaka Takahashi is extremely energy-efficient and has accomplished many feats, such as climbing the Grand Canyon using a rope and driving the Le Mans race track. In this photo, it powers along in a pool during a press conference in Tokyo on September 15, 2011.
Robots from German company Tobit Software are brilliant pole dancers. The photo was made on the eve of the start of the 2014 CeBIT (Centrum für Büroautomation, Informationstechnologie und Telekommunikation) technology trade fair on March 9, 2014, in Hanover.
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© AP Photo / Apichart Weerawong
Thai and US soldiers look at the display of a robot called Big Dog during the opening ceremony of the Cobra Gold military exercise at a hotel in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand, Thursday, February 4, 2009. The headless robot was created to help soldiers carry heavy cargos.
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© AP Photo / Darko Vojinovic
Honda Motors' humanoid robot ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) shakes hands with an assistant as it demonstrates its skills, in Belgrade, Serbia, on September 24, 2012.
Japanese motorcycle maker Yamaha Motor introduced the prototype model of motorcycle riding robot Motobot during a press preview at the Tokyo Motor Show in Tokyo on October 28, 2015.
This photo was taken on August 13, 2014, in It's More Teatime Than Terminator, a restaurant in Kunshan, China, where more than a dozen robots to cook and serve food.
Japanese exhibition volunteer Satoko Koremoto strokes Paro, a seal-type pet robot that interacts with people, as she sits inside a bedroom equipped with wall material that absorbs humidity inside a futuristic Zero Emission House, a prefabricated structure with high earthquake resistance and superior thermal insulation that reduces the burden on air conditioning, constructed at the at the G8 Summit site in Rusutsu on July 5, 2008.
Not only are people trying to take over space; humanoid robots do, too! This NASA file image made on March 2004 shows Robonaut B, a robot built with human-like hands and television camera eyes. The project is a collaborative effort with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and has been under development at Johnson Space Center (JSC) for several years. It is a self-contained robot controlled remotely by a human operator. Robonaut B also has the option of rolling around Earth on a modified two-wheeled scooter or grappling the International Space Station with what researchers call a "space leg,” as seen in this image. Robonaut uses a head, torso, arms and dexterous hands to perform tasks using the same tools used by human spacewalkers.
