Robots to read and study for students
CC BY-NC-SA EPFL Library
About 50 autonomous robots will be permanently installed in the EPFL Library by September 2021. Their mission? To help students locating books on the Library shelves, reading the documents and even studying!
Have you ever dreamed of having an assistance robot to look for documents directly on the Library shelves and bring them back to your work place? This small technological revolution should be available at the EPFL Library in a few months. Indeed, about 50 small robots will be delivered during the summer of 2021 and be in service at the beginning of the academic year in September. The robots will be bookable directly on the Library website or via the EPFL Campus application. The self-sufficient robots will reload their batteries by rolling on the slopes of the Rolex Learning Center.
When robots review for students
In addition to searching for documents on the shelves, the robots will also be able to read the books for students and provide them with short feedback: "The fact that the robots can assimilate the book main concepts and give them back to students represents a major advance in terms of information accessibility. This is a huge advantage for students who will have the opportunity to directly ask their robot which part of a book is more or less useful for revision" explains Mr. Nemo, one of the project leading researchers.
This major innovation is possible thanks to a new artificial intelligence model called RIP-NEBIS and developed by the EPFL lab NNTRBA (Never Need To Read Books Anymore). A first prototype of the robots is already visible online.