Loving the Machine

Tickle-me Tichno

2008-06-04T17:43:00.011+09:00

Osaka robotics startup Vstone and Japan Remote Control Co. recently unveiled a kid-sized robot called Tichno that can play soccer, albeit slowly, balance on one leg and do calisthenics.

It came out a winner at the RoboCup Japan Open in Numazu last month.

At 130 cm tall (4.2'), Tichno is designed to be the same size as a third-grade Japanese elementary school student. It weighs 26 kg (56 lbs) has 22 degrees of mechanical freedom. He also has newly developed knee servo motors for exceptional stability. It has the same controller as Vstone's Robovie-X tabletop humanoid and can be manipulated with a gamepad.

Vstone plans to equip the bots with voice-recognition technology and sell them to companies as marketing gimmicks. They'll be available for rental at a daily fee of around $5,000.

Via Robot Watch

Asimo conducts Detroit Symphony

2008-05-22T18:35:00.001+09:00

Fujitsu robot learns to cook

2008-05-05T23:39:00.009+09:00

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

2008-04-21T00:11:00.006+09:00

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"

2008-04-18T19:02:00.002+09:00

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

2008-04-16T20:55:00.007+09:00

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

2008-04-14T21:05:00.001+09:00

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

Drinks maker giving away robots

2008-04-08T22:34:00.010+09:00

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

2008-03-26T14:10:00.007+09:00

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

2008-03-26T00:02:00.008+09:00

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.

Robot Detective!

2008-03-24T22:09:00.007+09:00

Tonight Japan's channel BS2 aired a golden oldie from the vault: Robotto Keiji (Robot Detective), a short-lived 1973 tokusatsu series based on the manga by Shotaro Ishinomori about a robot crime-fighter. It predated Robocop by more than a decade.

Protagonist K is a quite a dandy for a humanoid, sporting a beret, yellow shoes and a red jacket. He drives a flying car and packs a gun mounted in his chest, handy when tussling with the Badou crime syndicate.

K fights ridiculous evil robots like Lockerman, a walking locker, and Springman...um, a giant spring. There's a great rundown of the rogue's gallery this fansite.

The funny thing about tough guy K, though, is that in times of distress he calls out "Mazaa!" (mother) and runs off to a giant mobile fortress in the shape of a goddess for repairs. His creator is a female scientist, Dr. Kirishima, who fixes him up in the fortress.

Mother complexes, human-machine relations, bargain-basement tokusatsu special effects: Robotto Keiji is great fodder for Japanologists of every stripe.

A steed for Asimo?

2008-03-21T13:29:00.005+09:00

BigDog, an amazing robot from Boston Dynamics billed as the "most advanced quadruped robot on Earth," needs a master. I can think of none better than the most advanced humanoid robot on Earth, Asimo.

Natch, since this beast isn't Japanese-designed, it's pretty terrifying. And natch, it's funded by DARPA. It could eat Sony's lovable Aibo for lunch. BigDog's locomotion AI software is impressive and it runs on a gasoline engine! It's designed "with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go."

Robot bartender no tin can

2008-03-17T17:11:00.008+09:00

How quickly they grow up. I remember checking out Yaskawa Electric's wheeled robot bartender SmartPal way back in 2005 when it was little more than a bucket of bolts with an LCD face.

The latest generation, SmartPal V, was announced late last year. Earlier this month it was shown off in a robot fair at the Kitakyushu Innovation Gallery down south. Kitakyushu is a center for humanoid robots in Western Japan along with Osaka.

Though it has been exhibited as a bartender, SmartPal is designed to address the demographic crisis of Japan's low birthrate and aging population by being a viable worker.

The fifth model in the series is 50% slimmer than past versions. It has new moving hand and pelvic units so it can perform more intricate tasks in manufacturing; its arms have seven joints, allowing it the same freedom of movement as a human arm.

But it can also pick up your beer bottle if you drop it, as shown in the pic.

Doraemon named anime ambassador

2008-03-15T14:22:00.004+09:00

Famed anime character Doraemon has been named Japan's first "anime ambassador," the Foreign Ministry announced. The earless robot cat from the long-running Fujiko F. Fujio series will promote Japanese culture overseas and enhance the power of so-called Cool Japan.

"By appointing Doraemon, we hope people in other countries will understand Japanese anime better and deepen their interest in Japanese culture," a foreign ministry official said.

In the manga and anime series, Doraemon travels back in time from the 22nd century to help a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Being a robot, Doraemon has thousands of cool gadgets that he pulls out of his fourth-dimensional pocket, like the Anywhere Door and Time Machine. Doraemon merchandising has made the character ubiquitous in Japan, appearing on everything from clothing to candy.

The move comes at a time when Japan's "scientific whaling" program has garnered it a lot of bad press overseas.

Transformer cellphone launched

2008-03-12T21:42:00.004+09:00

New transforming cellphones from Toshiba have arms and legs, creating a very robotic look. When folded up they look like regular phones.

The 815T PB, to be marked through SoftBank starting April 2, have folding limbs and screen faces that display their "emotions." Prices haven't been announced.

The posable Keitai Sousakan 7 phones can send text messages to users about their feelings through an onboard AI application called Buddy Talk. They can learn through dialog and adapt to user behavior. They also appear as characters in screen apps.

These little guys really are more than meets the eye!

Robots at the Kennedy Center!

2008-02-28T19:05:00.008+09:00

"Robotopia Rising" was a two-week exhibition of Japanese robots at the Kennedy Center in February 2008 that I helped organize as part of the Center's Japan! Culture + Hyperculture show. All the robot starts from Japan were there - Asimo, Wakamaru, the Toyota Partner Robot, Actroid, and others.

The show was immensely popular, drawing huge crowds large enough to pack the Center's vast hall. The Washington Times covered Robotopia Rising in this article.

I was really pleased to have guest speakers there that included android creator Hiroshi Ishiguro, roboticist Tomotaka Takahashi, and Tezuka authority Fred Schodt, author of the excellent Inside the Robot Kingdom.

I was busy demonstrating home robots from Japan like Tomy's i-SOBOT, Sony's Aibo and Kyosho's Manoi remote-controlled humanoid robot kits. Ready to go once you take it out of the box, i-SOBOT proved to be very reliable and its karate moves were popular with the kids.

The punishing schedule of the daily robot demos claimed a few victims. Asimo himself, the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, dazzled everyoen with his dancing and stair-climbing, but had a moment on stage where he "forgot his lines" and had to be assisted!

When one of the Manois broke down, my colleagues from Japan were kind enough to help me try to fix it by cannibalizing parts from the other one. Takahashi-san diagnosed the problem: a severed wire and burned-out servomotors. We restored Manoi to semi-working order so it could at least flex its arm "muscles." Always bring a backup robot when doing a demo.

One group of robots at the show that was totally immune to glitches also had the coolest looks - the Jumbo Machinders. My pal Matt Alt has an incredible collection of these large polyethylene toy robots from the 1970s and 1980s and they blew minds at the Center. Thanks, Matt!

Happy 2008 from LTM!

2008-01-01T09:45:00.000+09:00

New Aibo rumor groundless: Sony

2007-12-19T18:24:00.000+09:00

The blogosphere has been swirling with rumors that Sony is set to revive its much-loved robot dog Aibo next year with a PlayStation-compatible version.

Sony put Aibo to sleep in 2006 when it shut down its robot entertainment business. Earlier this year, Kotaku.com featured an interview with Aibo co-designer Masaya Matsuura that quoted him as saying, "The engineers behind the Aibo are doing the PS3. We are talking about making something like the new Aibo."

Then Stuff magazine apparently published a photo of the new "Aibo PS" in development and alleged it would be compatible with the PS3, PSP and WiFi. Numerous sites like Engaget and Gizmodo repeated the news.

Sounds great, but it seems no one bothered to call Sony to check.

Well, I did. The company's Tokyo headquarters says the rumor is entirely groundless and it is "definitely not" working on a new Aibo. The Sony spokesperson laughed when he saw the pic from Stuff magazine. (I think that pup looks way too nasty to have been designed by a Japanese company like Sony. It's just not kawaii.)

The whole thing smacks of a hoax. Or hype that got out of hand.
That's Internet journalism for you!

Drinks at Asimo Cafe

2007-12-14T10:06:00.000+09:00

I went to Honda's Tokyo showroom and had the pleasure of being served drinks by its humanoid robot Asimo.

Guests sit at tables in the office lobby equipped with touch-panel displays. There are two Asimos standing by at their charging stations. When they receive an order, they whir to life and bustle about like human waiters.

I selected green tea. Asimo carried out the order flawlessly - receiving a drinks tray from a human staffer, carrying to my table and depositing it, then bowing courteously and moving off. Other guests bowed to Asimo in return.

Perhaps the coolest thing was that it was largely business as usual at the office. Executives were coming and going, receptionists were greeting visitors and not too many people took much notice in the fact that there were two robots waltzing around the room serving tea and coffee.

Honda has always said it wants Asimo to be part of the everyday environment, and this was its most convincing demo yet.

Asimo gets smarter, can work in groups

2007-12-11T23:14:00.000+09:00

Just in time for the holidays, here comes the Asimo swarm.

Honda Motor has continued to evolve its humanoid robot Asimo and has equipped it with new smarts that lets it work in groups and for one to take over when another is recharging.

Asimo can now operate in an environment with people as well as other Asimos. Robots working together will wirelessly share data such as battery levels and the closest unit to a given task. Each works autonomously based on the networked information.

Another new AI function allows Asimo to estimate the path of people walking toward it based on their speed and direction and to avoid them by stepping back if necessary.

And when Asimo's battery level falls below a certain level, it will return to its recharging station and power up.

This marks the first Asimo upgrade since 2005. Having solved most major engineering challenges in building a bipedal robot, Honda has been focusing on Asimo's AI skills.

Check out the Honda videos here.

The latest version will be serving refreshments at Honda's Tokyo HQ this month and next. Eggnog, anyone?

Fiddle me this

2007-12-07T12:27:00.000+09:00

Toyota Motor has unveiled its latest awesome robot musician - a violin player. The Toyota Partner Robot is an addition to the automaker's lineup of gigging droids that includes drummers and trumpet players.

The violinist did a rendition of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" in a display that was dexterous but a tad, er, robotic.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told reporters the Partner robot will have a big role in helping take care of old people as Japan's population ages rapidly. The firm's robot staff of 100 will be doubled and a new robot research center will be built, he added.

Yet Watanabe admitted Toyota is still exploring possible business models for its humanoid robots.

Robots need to be successful products to have any real impact on everyday life. While the violinist is a nice engineering feat, getting it to tidy up a room and do the laundry would be a real breakthrough.

Robots can be weak, too

2007-12-05T11:49:00.000+09:00

Tatsuya Matsui is an architect and designer with a passion for robots. His studio Flower Robotics has produced some striking automatons like Posy, a cute little wedding flower girl. Others include a black-clad humanoid clown. His robots are cute but also a little scary.

Matsui's robot aesthetic is partly based on the notion that robots can share weakness and fragility with human beings, and that will endear them to us. That's why he thinks flowers are a metaphor for robots. Cyberdyne Systems this ain't.

He has also created a mannequin robot called Palette that can can swing its arms gracefully to enhance the appeal of clothing placed on it. Palette has already modeled designs by Hanae Mori and Louis Vuitton in Tokyo. Palette is also equipped with a vision sensor so it can mimic the gestures of passersby. The exhibition, at Mito Art Tower in Ibaraki Prefecture through Jan. 27, offered visitors iPods displaying what Palette sees (photo, below).

Matsui has also worked on Pino, a cute little robot used as a humanoid research platform, and SIG, a head used for robot hearing research at Kyoto University. I wrote an article on the latter for Scientific American that's archived here.

Tatsuya seems more concerned with robot design than functionality, but his Flower Robotics is only in its infancy. Meanwhile, he's been designing airliners and swanky buildings in Ginza. Matsui is quite a Renaissance Man.

There's more on the Tatsuya Matsui Flower Robotics exhibition in my Japan Times article here.

Sanyo rover checks for house cracks

2007-11-08T09:57:00.000+09:00

A new Sanyo Electric Co. robot can check for cracks in the foundations of homes by crawling through the narrow, inaccessible space under the floorboards.

The treaded robot has a video camera that relays real-time images to a remote location. It can automatically avoid obstacles in its path and can be remotely controlled with a computer mouse.

While the bot would be useful for checking for temblor damage in quake-prone Japan, Sanyo says it will promote the use of homes for longer periods, which a new law calls for to save on resources. Japanese residential buildings are typically torn down after only a few decades of use. Sanyo hopes to sell 1,000 units annually of the robot, which will retail for less than 1 million yen ($8,800), in five years.

Via Kyodo News

Toyota to sell Partner Robots

2007-11-04T17:39:00.000+09:00

Toyota Motor has marked the 70th anniversary of its founding by announcing a long-term business plan that calls for the commercialization of its humanoid Partner Robots for jobs like housekeeping and nursing support.

The Toyota Global Vision 2020 plan sees robots as a core business for the leading automaker, which also plans to make hybrid technology available for its entire fleet of vehicles.

There were no details on the timing of the commercialization of the Partner Robots, which debuted as a robot orchestra at the 2005 Aichi Expo in Japan.

Via Mainichi Shimbun

Smallest humanoid a chip off the old block

2007-10-30T20:29:00.000+09:00

I-Sobot, a new toy from Takara Tomy, has been launched as the world's smallest humanoid robot in production, certified by Guinness World Records. It's a 165 mm (6.5"), remote-controlled droid that walks, punches, kicks, does gymnastics and plays music. Its interesting features include 17 servo units, a gyro sensor for balance and the ability to recognize 10 voice commands. Not bad for $350.

I-Sobot also has a spoken repertoire of over 200 sound effects, words and cute asides like "I could go for an ice-cold can of STP." Funny, but its ancestor Omnibot from the mid-1980s (i-Sobot's name is actually "Omnibot 17μ i-Sobot") seemed to have more style, at least in the TV ads. He even makes a pass at a vacuum cleaner.