An intelligent robot that can deliver diagnoses like a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) physician will come on the market early next year, Shanghai Morning Post reported on Wednesday.

One University announced that it has been working with another University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the development of an intelligent TCM robot.

The robot TCM-1, to be released in March or April next year, will be able to diagnose patients by applying the ancient Chinese diagnostic methods of inspection, auscultation, olfaction and inquiry, according to Feng Jianfeng, a professor at Fudan University's School of Mathematical Sciences.

The service-oriented robot will be human-like, with hands and legs, he added.

The robot is said to be able to give more precise diagnoses by avoiding subjective opinions and making use of the experience of many TCM physicians.

Besides the four classic diagnostic methods, the intelligent TCM robot will also analyze data from computerized tomography and type-B ultrasonic examination.

But Feng also noted that despite all these advantages, the intelligent TCM robot will not be able to replace TCM physicians, due to the flexibility of the medical discipline.

Xu Tian, who heads the Institute of Developmental Biology and Molecular Medicine at the University, said that brain-like artificial intelligence technology could lead to another industrial revolution, with it now being widely applied in fields such as internet, financial investment, medical diagnosis, automatic driving and public security.