Robots edge closer to practical use in Japan – Stuart Griffin

Citation

(2002), "Robots edge closer to practical use in Japan – Stuart Griffin", Industrial Robot, Vol. 29 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2002.04929eab.005

Robots edge closer to practical use in Japan – Stuart Griffin

Robots edge closer to practical use in Japan – Stuart Griffin

Keywords: Japan, Robots

Robots in Japan are edging ever closer to practical use as was demonstrated at the international robot exhibition, Robodex 2002, in Yokohama City recently. Staged at the sizeable Pacific Yokohama exhibition hall, the well-attended show of four days featured a total of 28 exhibitors, including 13 firms such as Sony Corp., Murama Mfg Co. and Bondai Corp., especially prominent in their basic fields, several research agencies, and ten leading Japanese colleges and universities. The inaugural robot fair took place at this site two years ago.

Many visitors, from abroad as well as from Japan, were drawn to the nursing robot space, chief of which was a display by Professor Hiroyuki Hirakoso, director of mechanical engineering at Nippon Bunri University. He had been working in the nursing robot field as the aging of Japanese society picked up momentum and his earliest work was spent on his Mechano robot, a 50kg robot for use in helping bedridden patients to the lavatory, to bathe, or to eat and drink.

Visitors were also attracted to an exhibition by Hiroshi Kobayashi, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Tokyo University of Science. He is conducting extensive R&D on Saya, a facial robot that displays realistic expressions. The professor believes that his Saya robot can function as a communication tool for the elderly who live alone. With cameras installed in Saya's eyes, humans can verify if their elderly parents are safe. The face can be patterned on any person, babies, young children, and so forth, and the professor expects each household will own a Saya robot "before too long."

With colleagues, Professor Kobayashi is also conducting a study on an artificial muscle system. By wearing a black suit connected to the system, patients needing nursing care are able to move around more easily. In addition, the scientist has developed a meal-support robot system in a bid to help handicapped people eat more comfortably and at their own pace.

Artificial muscles were another feature presented by Shadow Robot Co. Ltd, the only overseas exhibitor at the exhibition. This, a British company, showed a humanoid robot with a wooden skeleton, air-control valves, and various sensors and interfaces. It uses air muscle technology to contract its artificial muscles utilising compressed air at low pressure.

The state-of-the-art show was well attended by children, mostly with a parent or parents. They were particularly fascinated with Honda Motor Company's humanoid Asimo, known as the first robot ever to ring the daily bell at the New York Stock Exchange, freely walking about on the stage. Attendees were also interested in a prototype called Q-taro, a 1kg sphere developed by the Sony Corporation's personal audio partner. Not only does this get closer to humans by perceiving body temperatures, but it can also "arrange" music when connected to audio gear.

Comparing this with the first and second expositions, more robot know-how this time was displayed for actual marketing purposes. Sogo Keibi Hosho Co. Ltd introduced its Guard Robo C-4 to work as a receptionist during the day, and as a security guard robot at night. Through a number of sensors inside the body, it can promptly detect a suspicious entry, a fire or water leak, and report at once to the firm's control center. The robot has gone on sale at a unit price of $71,000.

A Fukuoka Prefecture-based firm on Kyushu Island, in Southwestern Japan – Truk, Inc., in an alliance with the much larger Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd and the Omron Corp. – is engaging in a study on "the dinosaur-type" security robot. Equipped with a third-generation cell phone, the device can send out e-mail messages to homeowners when an emergency occurs in their absence. Sanyo Electric will handle all manufacturing at a rate of about $8,075 per unit of this Guard Robo C4.

The exhibition also showcased how people may rely upon robots not only for help at home but for a much wider range of social purposes. On former battlefields around the globe, robots are being looked upon for detecting and removing land mines. Fair visitors were very interested in the Comet-II, a 120kg robot with two arms and six legs that is capable of detecting elastic anti-tank mines. This was developed by the Kanzo Nonmi Laboratory at Chiba University across Tokyo Bay from the capital.

"More than 100 million land mines are still dangerously in place all over the world," says Quigjiu Huang, a Chinese graduate student who is one of the first members working on the project at Chiba University. Plans were being drawn up to visit Afghanistan late in 2002 to field-test Comet-II under actual conditions of battle.

Kazuaki Funahashi, a scientist who works at the electronics/computer system research department at Yano Research Institute, points out several factors behind the popularity of robot technology among Japanese. He argues that compared with people in many other countries, Japanese possess a "weaker feeling of it being wrong for robots to step into their daily lives, yet this is changing since devices come in the form of pets or humanoids, since a strong sense of friendship is developing in this regard. For one thing, a less religious environment is found in Japan, and this has allowed Japanese to develop technology as it concerns robotics, so little by little they have been more and more imbued with the world of animation in which robots play a growing part."