Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Office workers, move over. Here comes Honda's Asimo
Reuters Wako (Japan), December 15
Honda Motor Co's humanoid robot has been around: he's rung the famed bell at the New York Stock Exchange, met Spain's king, and even travelled with Japan's prime minister to Prague as a goodwill ambassador.
Now, the Japanese auto maker wants to prepare the four-year-old Asimo for some real work. Office work. Honda, considered one of Japan's most innovative companies and a leader in developing humanoid robots, unveiled on Wednesday a faster and smarter Asimo which, for the first time, can run, albeit at just 3 km (1.9 miles) an hour -- as fast as a leisurely human stroll.
Electronics giant Sony Corp's Qrio last year became the first humanoid robot to "run" -- defined by robot engineers as having both feet off the ground between strides -- but Asimo is almost four times as fast.
Honda's improved droid, which has grown 10 cm (4 inches) to 130 cm (4.25 feet) -- tall enough to be seen over partitions in an office -- also responds much faster to stimuli, allowing for more fluid movements and natural handshakes. He also walks almost twice as fast, at a pace of 2.5 km an hour.
"We want him to eventually be useful in office settings," Takanobu Ito, a managing director at Japan's third-biggest car maker, told a news conference at Honda's research centre in Wako, just outside Tokyo.
"For the first time, he can walk at a speed that doesn't get in people's way," Ito said.
With more built-in sensors, Asimo can now change routes upon recognising obstacles in the path to a pre-programmed destination. That's in addition to previously learned tasks such as recognising faces, approaching when beckoned and walking up and down stairs.
That means Asimo can manoeuvre his way around an office floor, handing out mail, for instance, avoiding desks and people along the way.
Still, it would be years before Asimo can truly come in handy in a real-life setting, Ito said.
The droid still needs to be recharged every hour, and can only take one order at a time. Honda says it has no plans yet to rent it out, but when it does, the cost is likely to be prohibitive: Its less-talented cousin costs 20 million yen ($189,900) per year.
"Personally, I want to start putting Asimo to use at our technology facility here by 2010," Ito said.
While Honda's robot business is no money-maker, Ito said various technology developed for Asimo could be useful in its core car and motorcycle-making operations as electronics controls increasingly take over the mechanics of automobiles.
Rival Toyota Motor Corp has similar ideas, having unveiled its first humanoid robot -- a trumpet-blower -- in March.
For now, though, such humanoid robots serve mainly as publicity tools with more entertainment value than anything else.
The bubble-headed Asimo drew a roar of laughter from journalists as he laboured a jog across the carpeted stage, swivelling his creaking hips and swinging his arms in a fluid motion resembling a child.
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.