Turin art museum lets a robot be the guide

R1 can answer your questions about the exhibition you see

The Turin Civic Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art (GAM Torino) is the oldest Italian museum dedicated to displaying works of modern art. These days it showed itself once again as a forward-thinking institution with the introduction of a robot guide, which helps visitors understand the exhibitions better.

R1 is the name of the humanoid robot which leads the art enthusiasts along the halls of the museum. It was designed by a team of the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa led by Lorenzo Natale, with the participation of Tim and Ericsson. It blinks, lights up, raises its arms and moves on wheels. It works thanks to a remote server equipped with artificial intelligence, to which it connects through 5G.

It is also designed for home use

The heads of the Didactic section of the museum, Antonella Angeloro, Giorgia Rochas and Federica Sesia, provided the “artistic knowledge” content used by R1. For the time being, this is meant to be an experimental run to see how well the interaction between people and robot will go.

R1 has not just “memorized” a lot of information about the artworks on display but is also able to understand and answer questions related to the exhibition. Once the questions are done it asks for the space in front of him to be cleared so it can proceed with the tour.

The robot, however, was not specifically designed to only work as a museum guide. In fact, its designers at the Institute of Technology explain on their website that it has been created with the idea to help humans in a variety of settings, such as at home or at the workplace.

R1 is meant to show the feasibility of creating an affordable service humanoid robot. The ballpark cost of R1 would be in the range of a small family car and, possibly, when produced in large quantities, it will come with a significantly lower price tag. The problem of cost has been addressed from three directions: with the use of polymeric materials, lightweight design and implementation of novel actuation solutions.

"Since 2019 we have formed part of the European project 5G Tours, which aims to demonstrate the possible fields of application of these networks,” explained Anna Follo, a digital officer of Fondazione Torino Musei (the organization that runs the city’s art museums), as quoted by La Repubblica. She mentioned that this project looks beyond the use of 5G technology in tourism, to also include mobility and healthcare applications.