STEP aside Asimo. A robot being developed in Iran has just got a lot smarter.

    Surena, the third version of a humanoid robot that researchers have been developing for eight years, was unveiled earlier last week.

    The robot stands at 190 centimeters tall, weighs 98 kilograms and has four articulated limbs, similar to Honda’s Asimo and Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot.

    It can interact with people using its voice recognition and speech modules — although it’s currently only able to speak Farsi.

    Surena can also recognize faces, and imitate people’s motions.

    Led by Professor Aghil Yousefi-Koma, the robot has been developed by the University of Tehran as a robotics research platform.

    Professor Yousefi-Koma told IEEE Spectrum that he sees Surena III being used in manufacturing, health care and disaster relief operations.

    He says the robot is a symbol of technology advancement “in the direction of peace and humanity.”

    The robot features six degrees of freedom in each leg, two in its neck, seven in each arm, one in each hand and one in the torso.

    These are driven by electric motors in the lower body, and a series of servomotor packages in the upper body.

    These allow it to walk along uneven terrain, kick a ball and grasp objects.

    The robot, built by the university’s Center of Advanced Systems and Technologies, also uses Microsoft’s Kinect sensor to navigate its way around.

    It is a major improvement over the previous Surena II robot, which was unveiled in 2010.

    Surena II had 12 degrees of movement in its feet and eight in its hands, while the new version has 31 degrees of freedom.

    Surena II was also slower, moving over an inch (2.5 centimeters) per second, while Surena III can walk at seven inches a second.

    In a video, researchers are seen placing inch-high boards under Surena’s feet to show how the robot can remain upright on uneven ground.

    The footage also shows Surena picking up an object with its hand and them passing it to a researcher.

    According to the university, Surena III has been under development for almost four years, with 70 people from six different Iranian institutions involved in the project.(SD-Agencies)