AI POWERED MASSAGE Robot Massage started work in Singapore today. Entitled Emma, compact for skillful manipulative massage automation, it specializes in back and knee massages as it simulates the human palm and toe to reflect therapeutic massages such as shiatsu and physiotherapy.
Emma started working on her first patients today at the Nova Health Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Clinic, where she works with human colleagues - a therapist and a massage therapist.
Emma 3.0 - the first to go public - offers a compact, extensive massage program and massage, one third more than the prototype unveiled last year, which is almost indistinguishable from a professional massage.
Emma practices advanced sensors to measure tendon and muscle vision, combined with artificial intelligence and cloud-based computing, to track optimal massage and patient recovery during treatments.
The technology start-up company at Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore) has developed iTreat Emma.
At only two years old, iTreat is worth $10 million (USD 7.3 million) after recently completing its seed round of funding, with support from venture capitalists from Singapore, China, and the United States, and also Brain Robotics Capital LP from Boston.
Mr. Albert Zhang, founder of NTU Singapore alumni and Nova Health, who spearheaded Emma's development, said the company's technology is addressing workforce shortages and quality compliance challenges in the health care industry.
The use of Emma in chronic pain management has the potential to create cheaper treatment alternatives in countries where health care costs are high, and the aging population has an increasing demand for such treatment.
Mr. Zhang said that Emma was created to provide a clinically accurate massage according to the prescription of a qualified Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor or physiotherapist, without the fatigue faced by a human therapist.
"By using Emma to perform labor-intensive massage, we can now offer patients a longer therapy session while reducing the cost of treatment. Then the human therapist is free to focus on other areas such as the neck and limb joints that Emma can perform." Massage for the moment, �said Mr. Zhang, who graduated from NTU’s Double Degree Program in Biomedical Sciences and Chinese Medicine. Source: straits times