Enchanted Tools, founded by Jérôme Monceaux, recently unveiled the Mirokaï, the prototype of a new generation of humanoid robots that are both wondrous and useful. The Mirokaï are endearing robot characters that were created as half-child, half-animal, fox-like creatures from outer space. Two of them are able to come to Earth: Miroki (the yellow one) and Miroka (the orange one).

According to the characters’ strong backstory and the characters’ design, developed with the help of French animation expertise, the Mirokaï have been given an extra element of soul. Because the company believes that robotics can re-introduce a touch of enchantment to the world, rather than dehumanizing it, the team at Enchanted Tools aim to revolutionize robotics by improving the acceptability of robots to promote their large-scale adoption.

A Brief Backstory

Far, far away in the cosmos, there is a planet inhabited by benevolent beings who have achieved a state of harmony. These creatures of light, the Mirokaï, have guided humanity along the path of otherness since the dawn of time. From cave paintings to the first writings and melodies, they have inspired humankind down through the centuries. According to this backstory, for the first time, two of them have passed through the portal that separates our two worlds and have come to our aid in person.

“I'm not perfect, but I'll do my best,” Miroki declares in a presentation video, before jumping into space and entering our reality. His spirit then slips into a kind of spacesuit—the robot prototype developed by Enchanted Tools—to create social bonds and a sense of unity. With this in mind, Enchanted Tools pooled the creativity of animation experts and industrial designers to change how we think about robots. “We were able to create a robot with personality, a robot with a depth that no machine has ever had. This is a disruptive and innovative approach to robot design,” says Monceaux. 

The challenge when creating the Mirokaï was not only to create robots that people would accept, but also ones they would find useful. This meant meeting three challenges of robotics.

1. Automated navigation in semi-standardized spaces: Perched on a rolling ball, the Mirokaï move and can be moved—in any direction. If one gets in the way, a gentle push with a finger will make it roll away, whereas a two-legged or track-mounted robot would need to be lifted. Miroki and Mirokais are easy to use and to handle, which is an essential feature for mobility in social and work environments.

2. Automated gripping of objects: the Mirokaï hands are uniquely designed to grip special handles—or runes, to continue the fantasy narrative—that users can attach to objects they want the robot to lift. The radical simplicity of this all-purpose handle allows both Miroka and Miroki to achieve a 97% grip success rate, where market standard is about 60%. This is essential because a tool that fails 40% of the time is not satisfactory. 

3. Semantic and emotional interactions with untrained users: Each Mirokaï is capable of the level of interaction required to functionally understand and execute voice commands.

Overall, the Mirokaï are simple robots. They are not the best at gripping, navigation, or interaction, but are adequate in all three areas to accomplish multiple tasks, including moving objects within a social environment. With the ability to carry loads up to 3 kg, Miroki and Miroka can be of use in all kinds of hospitality, transit, and leisure venues where staff recruitment can be difficult and where human interaction must take priority over logistics, such as hospitals, retirement homes, airports, trade shows, hotels, restaurant, etc. By means of simple voice instructions, the robot will be able to carry out tasks to make people's lives significantly easier.

Presently, it is possible to encounter them—in testing—at AP-HP (Parisian hospitals), at the Cancer Institute in Montpellier with sick children, as well as in retirement homes in the USA. Several universities around the world have also purchased Mirokaï to use for research.

Technical Challenges

A major challenge in the design and build of the Mirokaï was that the company only had one year to complete the project. This meant that they had to find reliable products that were suitable for prototyping and could then ramp up to industrial scale production. According to Monceaux, “Working with maxon was the obvious thing to do—it was the safe choice.” The maxon team assisted Enchanted Tools with product design as well as in selection of the motor types while taking into consideration all of the technical constraints of the project. 

Chosen for the ball bot, were three the EC-i 40 motors with integrated planetary gearboxes. These motors provide maintenance-free operation and use an electronic controller to ensure high-precision speed and torque control. Other axes, such as arm joints, used 22mm diameter brushless DC (BLDC) motors from the company’s ECX torque range. BLDC motors from maxon are dynamic, durable, and highly efficient, providing long service life and higher speeds than comparable motors on the market. 

According to Kevin Schwartz, sales engineer responsible for Enchanted Tools at maxon France, and Max Erick Busse-Grawitz, Technology Transfer Manager at maxon International, “Because the application was in the area of autonomous robotics, where the systems needed to support themselves, and where the actuators are consequently both part of the solution and also part of the problem (due to weight, inertia, and size), we proposed motors with high power density and a high torque-to-inertia ratio; in other words, a low mechanical time constant, and gearboxes with high efficiency and high torque density.” The objective was to achieve a balance between technical performance and production cost. 

*All robot images courtesy of Enchanted Tools

*All motor images courtesy of maxon.

For information: 

maxon https://www.maxongroup.com/en-us 

EC-I 40 Brushless Motor  https://www.maxongroup.com/maxon/view/product/488607 https://www.maxongroup.com/maxon/view/product/488607 

Enchanted Tools https://enchanted.tools/