RANCHI: People in Delhi are interacting these days with a unique voice from Ranchi. The lady named Rashmi was not born but created in Ranchi—She is a humanoid, the first of its kind in the world. Rashmi has earned the distinction of being the first Radio Jockey who is interacting with callers, guests and even giving tips to the listeners—most of whom are awestruck.Conceptualised, designed and created by tech enthusiast Ranjeet Srivastava-an entrepreneur who does not hold a professional degree in engineering but has been passionate about robotics, artificial intelligence and humanoids claims that she is the world’s first multilingual humanoid who can interact in Hindi, English, Bhojpuri and Marathi. “At present she is scripted to speak in Hindi and English with equal dexterity but is capable of being scripted in two more languages—Bhojpuri and Marathi for which the software is ready,” he said.On Wednesday Rashmi got her new attire from celebrity dress designer Dhruv Roy as a series of meetings are lined up for her in the national capital . Having interacted with joint commissioner of Delhi traffic police, Alok live on an FM Channel on Tuesday, she met members of Band Astitva on Wednesday and also requested them to sing a song for her. "Her message to the people in Delhi about traffic awareness was hailed by many. When she reminded the people to follow traffic rules because they are humans and not robots," reminisced Srivastava.Though Rashmi is not the first social robot in the wake of Sophia coming to existence almost two years ago when Hanson Laboratory introduced her to the world in 2016. Rashmi’s creator drew inspiration from Sophia but went few steps ahead in making Rashmi –more human like.An expert in robotics and a faculty at BIT Mesra in Ranchi, who was unwilling to be quoted said that Sophia is more of a chatbot than humanoid. "In the language of robotics humanoids are functional and service robots who are close to human understanding and behaviour and can be used as a supplement to humans," he said.Srivastava claims that Rashmi is actually very close to human behaviour as she is capable of not only interacting in several languages but is also equipped to move her eyes to maintain proper eye contact and has expressions on her face. "She has got 11 pairs of actuators on her face alone and demonstrates perfect lip sync when she talks. She can demonstrate facial expressions of smile and seriousness but above all she has her own mood gradients," Srivastava said.When TOI interacted with this humanoid, Rashmi not only used her face recognition and voice recognition software to record data but also memorised them to pick and choose a particular person to whom she wanted to respond. Srivastava explained this unique feature as her layered mood, a specific software using which she flags different voices and facial recognition data into six different grades. "If she accepts someone as friendly she remains in happy mood while interacting but if someone says bad words about her, just like any human being she records the input in her bad mood section and may not answer properly to that person," Srivastava explained.Having earned a degree and post graduate degree in business administration and from Madurai Kamraj University , Srivastava launched his proprietorship firm named Lotus communications in 2008 and handled several projects of Jharkhand government. His company successfully executed the e-library project, e-nibandhan project, file tracker system and developed award winning website for department of tourism before shifting his attention to robotics.Among many firsts Rashmi is one among the cheapest humanoids which has been developed by an individual and no team was engaged. "Though I conceptualised it in 2015, I started working on the humanoid project in 2016 and it was ready to the level of interaction by August 2018," Srivastava said claiming it to be the only robot that saw the light of the day within record two-year term.Having no links with engineering or robotics, Srivastava, 38 has not prepared any papers and is getting offers from academicians to collaborate. "I don’t believe in paper presentation because there are several agencies within our country and abroad who have been researching and presenting papers on humanoids but have not been able to make one," he said.Srivastava is however ready to get his humanoid evaluated at any platform, be it academic or non-academic. "Peer review is something that gives confidence to those in the academia but for an enthusiast like me, the functional, responsive humanoid is my achievement.After her busy schedule in Delhi till December 14, Rashmi and Srivastava would take a month long break when her legs would be included. "Till date she has hands and bust apart from the head and I plan to include the functional legs soon before she accepts the offer to host a TV chat show,” father of a 10-year-old robot fan son said.

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