Robots coming to life in Japanese labs

Citation

(2001), "Robots coming to life in Japanese labs", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.04928aab.009

Robots coming to life in Japanese labs

Robots coming to life in Japanese labs

Keywords Japan, Robots

Robots of all shapes, sizes, and varieties are coming to life in Japan's laboratories and, beyond machinery, the country's robotic scientists are striving to blend a little human personality with their latest technology.

Japan has been at the forefront of robot expertise since the early 1970s when manufacturers rushed to automate factory floors in an effort to catch up with the history of robots which commenced on American factory floors less than a decade before. Help was promptly forthcoming from the government in Tokyo, from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and its Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, from the Agency of Science and Technology, from the Science and Techniques Council, and from the Japan Machine Tool Builders' Association, a private industry body.

Consequently, as of the late 1990s, Japan held roughly 62 per cent of the world's operational stock of industrial robots, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

The new human touch was especially noticed when Takanori Shibata, only 32, but a senior research scientist for the MITI Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, finished a project with Omron Tateishi Electronics Corp. of Ukyo-ku, Kyoto City, on development of a pet robot, a cuddly little cat promptly named Tama ("ball"). The small feline could stretch its paws, open and blink its eyes, and turn its head toward people who called out its name.

In reality, Tama was preceded by AIBO, a robotic dog put out by Sony Corp. in June 1999 and purchased hastily by consumers both in Japan and the USA.

Japan's scientific community is awash with cutting projects involving pet robots and humanoid robots that research groups strive to have in marketable shape midway through the 2000-2010 decade.

"Tama", says Shibata, "was designed for ordinary people from kids to the elderly, for those who can caress the robot like a living pet. AIBO was designed more for machinery enthusiasts who enjoy watching it move".

If the reception of AIBO is any indicator, pet robots may find homes around the world sooner than anticipated by their inventors. The first 3,000 AIBO robots at US$2,425 apiece sold out in 20 minutes, those on sale in the USA sold out in four days.

The history of pet robots owes much to how Japanese scientists, brought up in an era of comic cartoons portraying benevolent robots living with humans, sought to bring such robots into private homes to interact with people.

The latest pet robot, modeled on a baby seal, has also been developed by Shibata with the Sankyo Aluminum Industry Co. Ltd. It waddles with its flippers, turns its head, and shakes its entire body, at the same time squeaking to show its emotions.

The research scientist is a pet-robot pioneer who originally worked with making industrial robots. He changed his focus when one day he decided "to make a robot that is a household pet, a real part of people's lives". He expects his products will be on the world market "in a couple of years", though the firms with which he is working "refuse to pin it down as to dates".

But the young scientist does talk in financial terms: "We can estimate that the pet-related market globally will be in the vicinity of US$8 billion, more than double the industrial robot market".

A bear robot called Kuma is being developed by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd, a world-name electric-electronics firm in Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture. It is designed to be a companion to the elderly as well as a "communications terminal" between people who are living alone and local health centers. It incorporates a speech recogniser and a synthesiser so that a person-to-person dialogue can take place in a time of emergency.

Kuma can be controlled via a telephone line by health centers, which can program the robots to offer birthday and holiday greetings, and give local news and weather conditions. For instance, Kuma can say clearly, "You have a doctor's appointment today, don't you? It is very cold outside. Please dress warmly".

Interaction between user and robot is automatically recorded and sent to the center. When there is no response to Kuma's comments or questions, the health center is alerted. Says general manager of Matsushita, Kuni-ichi Ozawa, "compared with other emergency call systems for the elderly, the pet robot is more warm and friendly and easy to use".

Matsushita demonstrated an English version of Kuma at a health-equipment exhibition in Germany. It says it will put a German-speaking Kuma on the market there in March 2002.

Personal robots that aim to help people with their work are also being developed in Japan. One plan would have about 100 robots work as guides and porters in the International fair – Expo 2005 – in Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, by that year. It is being developed by Taizo Umezaki, a professor at Chubu University in Nagoya, Japan's third city and industrial center close to the EXPO 2000 site.

The first prototype robot has shown that it could recognise the color of a visitor's clothing and follow the visitor without bumping into other people or nearby walls, but it does become confused when somebody wearing similar clothing comes between it and the visitor. Umezaki will solve this problem, however, by giving visitors a small signal-producer the robot can use.

The professor has given the robot a human face via a computer display, and he has devised technology that allows the lips and mouth to speak and the features to show emotions.

Part of the drive is to produce robots that can work in homes in the country's rapidly aging society. The government expects that 25 per cent of the population will be 65 or older by 2015, up from the 17 per cent at this time.

Along this line two well-known Japanese enterprises – Yaskawa Electric Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd of Fukuoka City, Kyushu in southern Japan, and Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo respectively – have jointly developed a robot that carries meal trays to bedsides. The NEC Corp., Minato-ku, Tokyo, has turned out a "home-care" robot which comes when called; turns on TVs and lights; accesses the Internet and reads e-mail with its synthesized voice.

Nevertheless, these robots have a way to go before they show up in the living rooms of the elderly. The biggest hurdle is safety. Large robots could topple on people at their present stage of mobility, but Japanese research is feverishly at work trying to end that threat and resolve any other problems.

Meanwhile, another pet robot, Moo, a rabbit, has come on the market, perfected by the ATR Media Integration and Communication Research Laboratories. It can hold simple conversations for a research project to analyse interpersonal communications. The ATR lab believes Moo "has the potential for other applications such as in the educational activities of small children or as a sales promotion tool".

Urethane foam used as exterior material has made the robot's surface soft as a child's skin. A video camera works as an eye to look automatically at a person to whom it is speaking or listening. The motor for walking is located at the bottom of the robot and an infra-red-ray sensor is placed in the robot that measures the distance itself and the path it walks and discerns in advance the door it intends to enter.

The voice recognition and sound-synthesis functions let the robot carry on simple conversation with either a human or another robot. The lab research spokesman admits that the "conversation will be disorganized at first, but Moo has the learning capability to decide which answer is most advantageous to itself to give".

Uniquely, the robot has mastered about 400 key phrases in the Osaka-area "Kansai-ben" (dialect) "and this", says the spokesman, "will permit it to speak in the kind of slangy language heard among high-school students on the train to and from school".

Lab personnel plan to operate their robot in a computer-network environment to improve the machine's conversational capabilities so that it can hold more natural conversations. At the same time, ATR hopes to "use the pet robot as a tool to analyse how infants and very small children gradually participate in the beginnings of communication with older children and adults".