Is there a Robot in the house?

What kind of images does the word "humanoid" call to mind? In the realm of fiction, Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I. attracted much attention with its story of a young robot, fully equipped with the very latest artificial intelligence devices, and his (its?) love for his mother. This story is an adaptation of the classic children’s tale, Pinocchio. As it happens, a humanoid robot that has borrowed from Pinocchio already exists in Japan.

This robot is named Pino, only 70 centimeters tall and a mere 4.5 kilograms. Pino’s body is designed to have curved features, giving it a smooth, modern appearance. The plastic nose is all Pinocchio, however. Pino was developed by the Kitano Symbiotic System Project as an experimental humanoid robot. This is just one project being carried out by Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (erato), a group under the auspices of the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (jst).

The purpose of Pino was to construct an inexpensive robot as an open platform which would help to broaden the robotics research community. This parallels the computer world, where the open Linux platform has made big inroads on Microsoft’s Windows OS, which holds the biggest share of the OS market. With its similar approach, Pino is like the robot version of Linux.

This project also aims to establish a field of "robot design". One such robot designer is Tatsuya Matsui. "There really haven’t been any cases where a designer was involved from the beginning stages of a robot’s mechanical development," he laughs. "Basic research in robotics has built up over the past 20 years or so. These days, robotics as an industry is approaching maturity. The role of the designer, then, is to come up with guiding concepts as to the actual form robots should take, and how to have them interact with people."

The link between Japanese industry and robots is certainly nothing new. The very first industrial robot was introduced in the United States in 1962, and industrial robots then made their appearance in Japan in the 1970s. The 1980s saw explosive growth in the use of industrial robots, mainly in automobile and other manufacturing and assembly plants, where they allowed for consistent production. There are approximately 740,000 industrial robots in use around the world today, of which 400,000 or more than half, are in operation in Japan.

However, robots are beginning to leave the factory and enter private homes and non-manufacturing offices. At the forefront of turning this science fiction scenario into reality is Asimo, a humanoid robot released onto the market by Honda in 2000. Asimo (Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is a two-legged robot, which stands 120 centimeters tall and weighs 43 kilograms. With a battery pack on its back, the walking Asimo calls to mind an elementary school student, book bag on his back, heading home from school.

Asimo uses advanced control technology to achieve mobility similar to human walking. It can also turn freely. The robot moves organically, quite unlike a typical machine, and gives a glimpse of a future when humans and robots co-exist.

Honda designed Asimo as a useful robot that can participate with humans in their daily lives by helping out with housework and other chores. Asimo is designed to act as a person’s alter ego, carrying out their tasks.

However, the work on humanoid robots does not merely aim to commercialize the technology. The largest humanoid robot research organization in the world, the Waseda University Humanoid Robotics Institute, was established last year at Waseda University. This group has a slightly unusual perspective on humanoid robot research.

"When people think of humanoid robots, they tend to think of something like Honda’s Asimo. The criteria for deciding whether a robot is ‘humanoid’ tends to be whether it has arms and legs and looks vaguely like a person. But we have to expand the meaning of humanoid," explains the Institute’s Atsuo Takanashi, a professor of engineering at Waseda University.

Waseda University has a long tradition of research into humanoid robotics. The late Ichiro Kato, a professor of mechanical engineering in Waseda University’s Engineering Department, began his pioneering research in humanoid robotics in 1964. This was the dawn of the robotic age, before industrial robots were even in use. In 1966, his team produced a lower limb model, WL ("Waseda Leg") 1, followed by Wabot-1 in 1970 and Wabot-2 in 1984.

"Professor Kato was my own teacher. He always worked on two areas of research simultaneously," says Professor Takanashi. "One of his specialties was humanoid robotics and the Wabot series. At the same time, he performed medical engineering research on prosthetic limbs. But he did not focus on these areas separately and individually. Research on a prosthetic leg can shed light on the function of the human leg. That understanding can then be applied to robot control. Conversely, progress in motor control or the use of sensors in a two-legged robot can be applied to prosthetic limbs. Professor Kato’s research was a give-and-take process.

How far can a fusion of the organic and the mechanical be taken? Humanoid robotics research at Waseda University has long focused on the mechanisms underlying the complex structure of the human body. This tradition is continued in the research of Professor Takanishi and his team. "For me, robotic devices that shed light on human body function can also be considered humanoid," says Professor Takahashi.

In 1996, Professor Takanishi completed Wabian, a bipedal walking robot. With his newest model, Wabian-R IV, he is exploring the secrets of how humans walk. Meanwhile, he has also made Mastication Robot, a robot that simulates how humans chew. Based on this research, Professor Takanishi is actively applying robotic technology to the medical field, by, for example, developing treatment devices for mandibular joint disease.

While research on humanoid robots continues, non-humanoid robots are becoming big business. These non-humanoid robots are no longer just for factory use, but are increasingly found at home. This trend began in the entertainment arena, with Sony’s Aibo.

Sales of the Aibo Ers-110 model began in 1999 to great acclaim. This Aibo unit is a dog-like robot that walks on four legs and is equipped with artificial intelligence (ai). This robot is not designed to be useful. Rather, it is programmed with emotions, instincts and ability to learn and develop through communicating with its owner. Aibo uses advanced control technology to walk, and is equipped with highly accurate cameras for eyes, as well as multiple touch sensors. The unit was released for sale over the Internet, and within 20 minutes of its release, 3,000 units were sold in Japan. In 2000 some improvements were made and a second-generation Aibo went on the market. Counting both models, approximately 100,000 Aibo robots have been sold to date. Aibo has been highly successful as the first entertainment robot in the world to reach the general public.

Nothing like Aibo had ever been released before, and Sony had no way of knowing what the market’s reaction would be. Who would buy such an expensive robot? Would there really be a market for it? Fears like these were needless, however. Consumers went wild over Aibo, and Sony waited for just the right time to release two new Aibo models in September 2001, nicknamed Latte and Macaron.

Both first-generation and second-generation Aibo robots were metallic. In contrast, the new Aibo models have a stronger "teddy-bear" flavor. They have been designed with more natural curved lines, to create cute and lovable robot animals.

"The first two generations of Aibo robots tended to have a more mechanical image. They were very popular with men in their 30s and 40s. This time, we designed Aibo to be more attractive to younger consumers in their 20s and to women," says Tomoko Koyano of the Sales Promotion Department in Sony’s Entertainment Robot Company.

"We used the movement of animals such as the panda and the bear as a reference point. But we felt that if we merely copied the movement of these animals, we should not achieve the look our consumers wanted, says Takao Yamaguchi, a member of Products Development Department 1. The result of their work, Aibo is a completely new digital creature with its own lovable mannerisms. Already, Sony’s venture in the field of entertainment has earned it a huge number of enthusiastic fans.

The application software in the first generation of Aibo robots was not encoded. However, software encoding started with the second generation. Rather than continue with a strategy of open source software design, as Linux did, the company decided to protect copyrights and create a supportive business environment for their product. Sony explains this move as a way to protect the rights of the programmers, as well as to encourage the future participation of third party developers. The possibilities for other software companies to create programs with Aibo as a platform are growing.

"The robot industry won’t stop with simply making a sale and a profit. Robots will become durable goods, so in the future you might have sales of say, a million units. At that point, there will be companies that make software for these robots. Then of course, there will probably be people who give robots tune ups, or companies that specialize in used robots," says Professor Inoue as he explains the varied aspects of value chain management for robots.

Aibo has created a new group of consumers, the "robot user" group, and at the same time is spurring the development of an entirely new industry. In the future, the humanoid robots of Honda or HRP may move into private homes in the way Aibo has. This is just the sort of scenario that Professor Inoue envisages. If robots become an everyday part of our lives, we may well witness a Robot Industrial Revolution.

Tatsuya Matsui, who helped design Pino, explains how the Pinocchio story applied to humanoid robot research: "Pinocchio was neither a human nor a puppet. But he searched for his own identity. He had many adventures. Eventually, he discovered who and what he was. This path of discovery is mirrored by the research and development in robotics today."

The robotics industry has only just been born, but it is already treading the long path of self-discovery.

Reprinted from Pacific Friend, January 2002 (Jiji Gaho Sha, Inc., Tokyo, Japan)