Chinese automotive company Chery has launched a humanoid robot designed to engage with children and assist with English learning. Building on its automotive manufacturing expertise, Chery is expanding into the consumer robotics market.
Chery's subsidiary, Mojia Robotics, unveiled its first consumer companion robot, 'Mobao,' during a global launch event held on October 21 in Wuhu, Anhui Province, and has begun global pre-orders.
Mobao is a compact humanoid robot standing 90 cm tall, featuring a rounded design and flexible materials to create a friendly appearance. It can walk and express emotions through gestures, aiming to be a companion that continuously interacts with family members rather than just answering questions.
One of its standout features is its ability to support play and learning for children. Mobao can recognize objects in its surroundings and respond to related questions. For instance, if a child points to an item and asks for its name or purpose, Mobao engages in conversation accordingly. It also has storytelling capabilities and can converse in English. The robot can perform various physical movements, including walking and dancing, allowing children to enjoy interactive play by observing and responding to its actions.
Mobao offers different functionalities tailored to family members. For seniors, it serves as a conversational partner and can remind users of scheduled tasks or to-dos. It identifies family members' faces to distinguish who it is conversing with and utilizes long-term memory to continue conversations based on previous interactions. The product supports over 20 languages, making it suitable for multilingual environments.
Equipped with spatial awareness technology, Mobao can understand its environment by integrating language, visual information, and conversational context to grasp user intentions. Its spatial memory feature combines real-time detection data with past records to assist in locating objects or completing tasks.
However, the disclosed functionalities primarily focus on conversation, play, information provision, scheduling reminders, mobility, and task execution. It remains unclear whether Mobao can autonomously handle complex household chores such as cooking, cleaning, or laundry. Chery aims to leverage its manufacturing capabilities, supply chain, and global sales network from its automotive business to expand commercialization in the robotics sector.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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