This robot knows exactly what kind of personalised massage you need
According to her designers, a session with Emma is almost indistinguishable from one provided by a professional human masseuse.
A robot massage therapist is now taking clients in Singapore.
Her name is Emma, and she provides a rather unconventional – though totally above board – oriental massage service.
Unlike most other practitioners she has only one arm, and it is made of metal.
Her two “palms” consist of soft silicon that can be warmed for comfort, and her conversation is non-existent.
The robot has just started work at the NovaHealth traditional Chinese medicine clinic, where 40 minutes of her time, combined with human therapy and acupuncture, costs £38.
Emma, short for Expert Manipulative Massage Automation, was developed by AiTreat, a company spun out of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Guided by a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyses data from each patient, she is designed to provide a highly personalised massage experience.
According to her designers, a session with Emma is almost indistinguishable from one provided by a professional human masseuse.
Inderjit Singh, chairman of Nanyang Technological University’s innovation and enterprise arm, NTUitive, said: “There is great potential for Emma to be of service to society, especially as the population ages.
“The massage techniques of experienced and renowned TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) physicians can be reproduced in Emma, giving the public easier access to quality treatment.”
AiTreat and NovaHealth founder Albert Zhang said Emma delivers clinically precise massages according to prescriptions provided by expert human practitioners.
“By using Emma to do the labour-intensive massages, we can now offer a longer therapy session for patients while reducing the cost of treatment,” he said.
“The human therapist is then free to focus on other areas such as the neck and limb joints which Emma can’t massage at the moment.”
