The creation of SanTO: a robot with “divine” features

In rapidly ageing societies of developed countries there is a growing need of socially assistive devices. Religion is one key factor in acceptance: we present a new robot called SanTO, inspired by Christian Catholicism. It has the appearance of a statue of a saint, inspired by sacred and neoclassical architecture. Its aim is to keep company with the user for prayer. SanTO has 2 degrees of freedom and can communicate through visual tracking, voice and touch. In this paper we present its design and development.