Hospital companion robot simulation earns Vogue innovators award for Grace Brown

An autonomous hospital companion robot simulation named "Abi" has proven a winner for University of Melbourne student Grace Brown, receiving the inaugural Vogue Codes Future Innovators Award for 2021.

Grace, a Bachelor of Science student majoring in Mechatronics, won the award - presented by Optus - aimed at celebrating “young women who share global ambition and a passion for using technology to make a difference”.

Inspired by Baymax, a companion robot from Disney’s “Big Hero 6” movie, Grace successfully pitched her idea to the Melbourne Space Program and recruited a team of 19 undergraduate and postgraduate students excited by the technical challenges involved.

The team designed Abi, the autonomous bipedal humanoid robot, to carry out simple tasks in hospital settings and act as a companion that can “respond to conversation and give hugs”, Grace said to Vogue Australia, explaining that it was her dream to “push the state of the art of robotics in Australia.”

Abi currently exists as a simulation on a computer screen, but a prototype should be complete by the end of summer 2021-22 with the help of 3D-printed plastic parts and motors developed by the team.

Grace plans to take Abi from student project to start-up, with promising industry investment interest, saying “there is no doubt in my mind that the successful development of Abi will be a profound breakthrough for the field of robotics that will propel us into the next technological era, where social companion and assistant robots are integrated into everyday life.”

As winner of the Future Innovators award, Grace receives a $10,000 prize from Optus that she says will be used to purchase hardware needed to build a full prototype of Abi.