PAL Robotics ARI

What it's for

A hotel reception desk, a university lobby, a trade show booth. ARI is a robot that greets people. Spain's PAL Robotics built it for human-robot interaction (HRI) research and for reception use. It stands 165 cm tall, with a differential-drive mobile base, a movable head (2 degrees of freedom) with expressive eyes on an LCD display, and two five-axis arms for gesturing. That is 14 degrees of freedom in total. The arms are for nonverbal communication, not for handling objects: no payload is specified at all. Underneath runs Ubuntu with ROS Noetic, face and body tracking, Vosk speech recognition in more than 20 languages, and a Rasa dialogue manager. Processing is done locally in line with GDPR, with an optional cloud, which is an argument for reception desks, where a robot sees faces. The 24V/40Ah battery (960 Wh) gives 8 to 12 hours of operation according to the datasheet. Optional packages: autonomous navigation (LiDAR + SLAM) and autonomous docking. Among the sensors you will find an Intel RealSense camera, and optionally an NVIDIA Jetson computer. Uses: a reception desk, guiding visitors, demonstrations at schools and universities, HRI research in the lab. See service robots, hotels, universities and “Data Security: Robots with Cameras and the GDPR”.

Who it's for

Worth considering for: universities and laboratories that study human-robot interaction and want a ROS-based platform with ready-made dialogue. Hotels and venues that are testing a reception robot and accept quote-based sales. Innovation departments that care about local data processing in line with GDPR.

Who it is not for: anyone who wants the robot to carry or serve things, since ARI has no payload rating and no gripper. Off-the-shelf budgets: the price is not published, and sales are by quote to institutions. Anyone looking for a quick purchase in Poland: availability is not confirmed. Anyone who needs a cheap advertising robot: ARI is research hardware, not a gadget. See “Service Robots in Restaurants and Hotels”.

Deployments

ARI's availability in the country is not confirmed. The manufacturer points to applications such as reception, guiding visitors, HRI and research. PAL TIAGo works in hundreds of European university labs, Pepper-type robots served as receptionists (Pepper was discontinued in 2024), and the number of delivery robots in food service and hospitality is growing. See “Educational Robots for Schools and Universities”.

Pepper is a wheeled reception robot (120 cm, 28 kg) that was discontinued in 2024, with about 27,000 units built; choose it only if a used unit turns up.

temi V3 is a reception and telepresence robot from 4,499 USD (about 17,400 PLN (≈ EUR 3,990 at NBP rate 4.3641 of 21 October 2026)) or from 125 USD per month as robots-as-a-service (RaaS); availability in Poland is unconfirmed. Much cheaper, but without arms and without the HRI research pedigree.

PAL Robotics TIAGo comes from the same family, but it is for manipulation, not conversation.

PAL Robotics TIAGo Pro is more modern: a 23-DOF mobile manipulator on a mecanum base with ROS 2.

Pudu BellaBot is a delivery robot for food service, if what you care about is serving rather than talking.

PAL Robotics was founded in 2004 in Barcelona and is one of the more important European suppliers of research and service robots. Its portfolio includes the mobile TIAGo, the humanoid TALOS for research on bipedal locomotion, and ARI, aimed at interaction with people. ARI is therefore a complement: TIAGo manipulates, TALOS walks, ARI talks. The launch date of ARI is not documented; the datasheet we rely on dates from 2025. See PAL Robotics.