Fujitsu robot learns to cook

Fujitsu's humanoid robot HOAP-3 can do lots of nifty tricks like write its name and do acrobatics, but now it can add cooking to its repertoire.

Sylvain Calinon and other researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have used imitation learning and probabilistic models to teach HOAP to help make omelets. Through direct human guidance, it learns to whip eggs, cut ham and grate cheese, focusing on the most essential part of each task and ignoring irrelevant events. It automatically adapts when a mixing bowl is moved.

As the longer video below shows, the silky-voiced HOAP recognizes objects through visual markers, and researchers answer its queries with a Wii remote. They also curse it when it screws up!

Foolishly, the researchers armed the robot with a sharp knife - but they survived the experiment.

The HOAP cooking show is part of the European Commission's Cogniron project to create helpful humanoids. HOAP, or Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform, was designed as a research platform and was marketed back in 2001.

Farmer hails strawberry-picking robot

Oldster farmers in Japan face increasingly tough times - few younger Japanese are willing to go into agriculture, and finding a successor to help out on the farm can be very difficult.

So robots are being developed as power suits - and as fruit pickers.

In Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture, venture firm Romobility Youto is working on a robot that can perform the labor-intensive task of picking strawberries, and at least one farmer is enthusiastic, Nikkei Net reports.

The robot moves through a greenhouse scanning the strawberries with its color-sensitive camera eye.

When it detects a ripe one, its arm reaches out to cut the fruit and place it on a tray. Ambient light doesn't affect performance.

"Measuring... Oh, I found one. Starting to pick," Nikkei quoted the machine as saying. It's still pretty slow, picking only one berry every ten seconds.

Still, the farmer who owns the greenhouse was sanguine.

"Strawberry harvesting requires a great deal of both time and labor as delicate differences in color must be identified with the naked eye," Nikkei quoted him as saying. "If it is reasonably priced, I will consider buying one."

Romobility aims to commercialize the machine in two years.

There's a video if it in action here.

Source: Nikkei Net

"The power of suits"

Speaking of power suits, here are some eye-popping ads for the Nissan Dualis, also known as the Qashqai, a robot-friendly compact crossover SUV. The first was on TV today.

Mass production of robot suits to begin

Cyberdyne Inc. has begun construction of a new lab (image below) that will mass-produce 400-500 robotic power suits every year starting in October, and tens of thousands of units in the next few years, the venture firm announced.

The suits, known as HAL for Hybrid Assistive Limb, are designed to help people with disabilities including patients with muscular dystrophy.

They work by detecting electrical signals in the skin and boosting limb strength through the attached power units. The battery charge lasts about two hours and forty minutes.

The suits will be available for rent to individuals for less than $1,000 a month, and to medical groups for less than $2,000 monthly.

The business will begin in Japan, but the firm has plans to expand internationally.

The lab/plant is located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, home of high-tech groups like humanoid robot developer AIST and the University of Tsukuba, where Cyberdyne head Yoshiyuki Sankai teaches.

via Kyodo News

Swinging robot video

Someone's been programming a KHR-series robot kit to swing, demonstrating how practical they can be!

Drinks maker giving away robots

Major Japanese brewer Suntory is giving away free robots - one hundred Roomba 570 vacuum cleaners from iRobot as well as a thousand of these cute little original tabletop bots it calls Zerobo. The giveaway is to promote the relaunch of Suntory's Dakara health drink.

Zerobo, named for the zero sugar, calories and salt in Dakara, is pretty nifty for a freebie. It uses infrared sensors and bumpers to detect obstacles and differences in surface levels. It can do light vacuuming in a random pattern like Roomba and respond to voice commands. You can Zerobo saying "Good morning" and other Japanese words on this site.

Another prize is a Dakara-shaped vacuum cleaner that fits in the palm of your hand. Powered through a USB connection, it can be used to clean your PC keyboard.

Toshiba unveils infrared bot

Toshiba has announced a prototype tabletop robot called Apri Poko that can operate household appliances like TVs via remote control. It's designed to be an all-purpose controller with cute looks.

When you operate appliances with infrared remotes, this 27 cm-tall cousin of Toshiba's ApriAlpha can detect the beams and learn to associate them with whatever they operate.

If it detects an unknown beam, it will ask you what it does, and then remember that function based on your voice response. After that, all you have to do is tell it to "Turn on the TV," and it will do the job itself.

It also has a head cam that helps it recognize users. Toshiba plans to commercialize Poko in the future, but no word yet on a date or price.

via RobotWatch

Metrobot squad infiltrates Seoul subway

South Koreans have drawn attention for plans to have a robot in every home by 2010. That faraway goal came a step closer today when the Seoul subway began deploying a small army of service robots called Metrobots to assist travelers.

The humanoid machines can provide information about subway fees, restaurants, tourist attractions and maps in Korean and English. Ten Metrobots are to work at City Hall and nine other transfer stations on the busy Metropolitan Subway system.

What with Japan's Asimo and Korea's Hubo in near-parallel development, I wonder whether this bit of one-upmanship in the robot arms race will see a flood of Wakamaru bots hitting the Tokyo underground.