Robot makers take people-friendly steps

Citation

(2003), "Robot makers take people-friendly steps", Industrial Robot, Vol. 30 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2003.04930aab.004

Robot makers take people-friendly steps

Robot makers take people-friendly steps

Keywords: Robots, Honda, Sony

Help wanted: courteous, helpful, expressive, cheerful, obedient biped that can sing, dance, and climb stairs. Humanoids are preferred, and one is now available at a research center in Tokyo’s Hakozaki district, introduced by one of Japan’s leading automakers, Honda Motor Co. It is named ASIMO and is a 43 kg humanoid robot that is 1.2 m tall, walks on two feet and can easily mount stairs. ASIMO acts as receptionist, awaiting visitors, and showing them to a meeting room. It then bows, thanks the visitors for coming, and gives a folding umbrella to each guest as a gift from Honda.

Honda is not the only firm that is selling sophisticated robot technology, since Japan-wide manufacturers and Japanese universities and colleges are busily developing everything from emotionally expressive robots to wearable robot kits. Market researchers say that advanced mechatronics is one of the very few business areas which Japan is well in advance of the rest of the world, and there is a belief, at least a hope, that the nation’s robotic advantage will aid the otherwise too sluggish industrial situation.

The Sony Corp. has unveiled a prototype small biped entertainment robot, the SDR-4X, the well-received Robodex 2002, an upgraded version of the SDR-3X that is equipped with two charge coupled device colour cameras for image recognition. This SDR-4X is able to walk on irregular and tiled surfaces and can retain its posture under external pressure via various sensors, including its seven microphones, which gather information about its surroundings.

Not only does this robot get up on its own after it has fallen down, but it has a vocabulary of some 60,000 words and can memorise 100 more, such as names. Moreover, if it is supplied with musical data, Sony’s new robot is able to break into song, complete with appropriate facial expressions. Soon to go fully on the market, Sony calls its price about the same as a luxury car.

“Now that we have developed so many two-dimensional virtual characters through our game consoles, we want to provide entertainment that is universally accepted. I believe this segment will be one of our major Japanese business pillars in the near future.” This is the opinion of Takashi Kawanami, Sensor Manager in Sony’s business strategy department.

Other well-known Japanese concerns, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Matsushita Electric Industrial and the Omron Corp. are seeking to develop robots with practical uses, such as for home nursing care.