Now, a robot that sings like a pop star

She is able to “sing” using a synthesised voice technology that sounds and breathes like a human, too, reports The Daily Mail.

Masataka Goto, from Japan’s Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said: “This robot primarily utilises two technologies. One is for its singing voice. Last year, we used Yamaha’s vocaloid software to synthesise notes directly. But this year, we’ve used our own technology called VocalListener.” This is a new technology which synthesises a singing voice on the computer side as if imitating a person’s singing voice.

“Also, for the robot’s facial expressions, we’ve developed another new technology called Vocawatcher. This analyses a video of a person singing to create expressions naturally,” Gato said.

Researchers used a real singer as a model, recording her every move as she sang a typical Japanese pop song.

The movements were mapped onto HRP-4, who was then able to mimic her real-life counterpart’s every movement. The team even helped the robot breathe realistically, by modelling real, human breathing sounds.