An AI-Powered Shiba Inu That Dances and Talks

AI assistants can do everything from answering questions and controlling smart home devices to keeping you company, but they usually aren't much fun to interact with. Luca Di Lorenzo is tired of the usual smart speakers and phone apps these assistants run on. He wanted something with a little more personality, so he built Nuvi, a small AI-powered desk companion inspired by a Shiba Inu.

Nuvi stands less than 12 inches tall, but Di Lorenzo managed to squeeze quite a bit of hardware inside its custom 3D-printed body. The robot can carry on conversations, move its head, arms, and ears, respond to touch, recognize hand gestures, and display animated expressions on a screen. It will even dance when the mood strikes.

An Arduino UNO Q serves as the brains of the robot. Its hybrid architecture combines a Linux-capable quad-core processor with a microcontroller, which is particularly useful for a project like this. The Linux side can take care of higher-level tasks like AI and voice processing, while the microcontroller handles the time-sensitive job of interacting with motors, sensors, and other hardware.

Four metal-gear servos move Nuvi's arms and ears, with a PWM driver controlling them over I²C. The head gets two additional degrees of freedom from a pair of serial servos. Fitting those servos into the neck without leaving supports and wires hanging outside turned into one of the more difficult parts of the build. Di Lorenzo went through several iterations before arriving at a mechanism that could provide the desired movement while remaining hidden inside the body.

A 4-inch LCD makes up much of Nuvi's face. Animated eyes blink and change expression, giving the robot visual reactions to what is happening around it. Additional indicators show states such as listening, thinking, talking, and sleeping.

Distance sensors determine when someone is nearby so the robot doesn't need to remain fully awake in an empty room. Capacitive sensors in its head and belly detect petting, and a temperature and humidity sensor lets it report conditions in the room. A microphone with noise filtering handles voice input.

When someone calls Nuvi by name, it can send the conversation to Gemini, which handles voice input and generates a response. Piper also runs locally on the UNO Q to provide offline speech synthesis. Nuvi mutes its own microphone while talking so it doesn't accidentally start responding to itself.

Computer vision adds another way to interact with the robot. An open-hand gesture can prompt Nuvi to report environmental information, for example, while a V-sign can be used to control smart lighting.

Di Lorenzo has released the 3D design files, bill of materials, source code, and build instructions, so Nuvi doesn't necessarily have to remain a Shiba Inu. The same hardware could provide the foundation for just about any little desk creature a builder wants to bring to life.