A good body massage can help the blood circulation going, relieve pain and fill you up with energy to face the day. For those suffering from pain in the back or in the knee joints, gentle massage can be a better way to deal with the pain than consuming pain killers every day. Considering all the benefits of a good massage, a startup in Singapore has come out with a robot masseur.

Known as EMMA, which is short for Expert Manipulative Massage Automation, the robot acts like the human palm and thumb while giving a massage. The robotic masseur uses advance sensors to measure tendon and muscle stiffness. Then it calculates the best possible massage technique which would benefit the patient. The Artificial Intelligence is cloud based and has the ability to track the patient’s progress over multiple treatments.

The most remarkable achievement of this science project is that EMMA has now been pressed into public service at the Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic in Singapore. This is a first for any robot masseur. It’s human counterparts include a physician and a massage therapist. If the robotic massage expert gains popularity it will help with low cost health care options. While it’s early days yet, one doesn’t know what will happen in the future.