On Kickstarter is active a crowdfunding campaign to finance the production of MarsCat, an intelligent and “affectionate” robot cat designed by Elephant Robotics.
News coming soon for cat and technology lovers. Elephant Robotics – a Shenzhen-based company specializing in the creation of industrial and domestic robots – has launched a crowdfunding campaign to finance the MarsCat project. As shown on the Kickstarter platform, it is a real “robot cat” capable of meowing, purring, jumping and playing (almost) like a real kitten. A true concentrate of tenderness and technology: the robot is equipped with bionic limbs to move in all directions and integrates six tactile sensors along the body. Inside the nose is hidden a 5-megapixel camera that allows the cat to “see” what is happening outside while the mouth houses a special sensor to orient itself in space. MarsCat also has a Raspberry Pi 3 RAM memory that allows it to store large amounts of data and is powered by an electric battery that guarantees up to 3 hours of “constant interactions”.
MarsCat, the cat robot looking for supporters: features
Just like a live cat, MarsCat will be able to meow in many different ways and interact with its surroundings. The peculiarity of the Elephant Robotics project lies right here. MarsCat will not be a “simple” robot capable of performing programmed actions but it will develop its behavior (we could say, its personality) according to the type and frequency of interactions with the surrounding world. For example, MarsCat will be more talkative if its owners spend more time talking to it. In addition, as anticipated by Joey Song, SmartCat will be able to recognize twenty keywords and will therefore be able to “understand” and “execute” a number of specific commands such as “come here” or “sit”. This is a very ambitious project that needs substantial funding to see the light. For this reason, Elephant Robotics has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter: interesting SmartCat users can pre-order the robot for 650 euros, choosing from four different colours: white, grey, ginger and black. For all the others, the robot cat will be on sale by the end of 2020. Don’t panic: no need to prepare the litter box!