They are mobile, they can find you, they can talk to you and ask you questions. They can interact with you, see you, they seem to be intelligent. They explain the exhibits to you, show you around, they can introduce you to their colleagues and to robotics researchers on site. And they are interested in what you think about them. Robotics is an exposition project for expo.02, the Swiss National Exhibition, May-October 2002.

It is the biggest project of its kind ever realized. Eleven fully autonomous personal robots will interact with hundred of thousands of visitors during six months, seven days a week, ten hours per day. Robotics is an exposition project about the decreasing distance between robotic technology and man. Industrial robots, as the pioneering and now economically successful robotics branch, is about to be followed by the next generation: personal robots.

They enter domestic and emotional domains and develop affective relations to their users. And the last, final step in this succession is also already made: Cyborg robotics, the fusion of robotic technology and the human body. Robots become biocompatible.

Some Numbers:
up to11 fully autonomous robots
up to 12 working hours per day
3'316 Km driver by the robots
13'313 total working hours
686'485 visitors