Robo Done, the robotic academy franchise for kids from Osaka, Japan, celebrated Japan’s Day of the Children on the 5th of May at their annual event, Robot Festival 2017 or RoboFes. The event welcomed over 1,000 attendees, including children and their parents.

This was the 2nd time Robo Done has celebrated the festival. In only one year, the number of attendees has increased threefold (350 attendees in 2016 to over 1,012 in 2017). It was celebrated in the KANDAI MeRise Campus of the Kansai University in Osaka, Japan and has become the biggest event at the campus.

The main activity was the Robot Contest, using LEGO Mindstorm, with morning and afternoon leagues. Over 200 children — from 6 years and up — participated in the championship. The kids built robots in pairs and programmed their creations, repeating the process of trial-and-error against a time limit. Several IT and robot related companies had booths, as well as, students of the university, which offered a variety of activities for the kids to enjoy.

Robo Done will hold RoboFes again in 2018, hoping to inspire even more kids to enjoy robotics and programming. We hope RoboFes will become a regular event during Japan’s “Golden Week!”

Both Softbank and NTT, with their large existing consumer bases, both seem to be vying to develop the robot-as-a-service market.

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• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
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Yesterday a second Japanese telecommunication firm entered the consumer robot-as-a-service market when the state-owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) announced it would partner with its subsidiary NTT Data and robot maker Vstone to develop a tabletop companion robot that can talk and communicate with smart devices. NTT joins Softbank in the move to market networking and cloud computing services to a massive existing consumer base using consumer robotics. NTT says its Sota companion robot will cost about 100,000 JPY (~$800USD), with a monthly service fee of a few thousand JPY (~$30). UPDATE:  Softbank will take pre-orders for enterprise version of Pepper starting Oct 1 

NTT seems to be betting that a simpler, smaller and less expensive device will be more appealing to Japanese consumers than Softbank’s larger (and mobile) Pepper, which costs about $1600 for the robot, plus $200 per month for the online service and maintenance contract. Japan, with its high housing costs, is notorious for its small apartments, and a table top robot that doesn’t need to navigate stairs or take up precious real estate might be just the competitive advantage NTT needs. Sota weighs about 1kg and is only 11″ (28cm) high.

Hiroshi Ishigura announces Sota at a press conference in January 2105. Source: Japan Times.

It remains to be seen how the two devices will compare in terms of their conversational abilities. In January of this year, Japanese robotics researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro – known for his work on extremely life-like humanoid robots – announced at a news conference that he was developing Sota (which stands for ‘social talker’) in collaboration with Vstone. At the news conference Ishiguro said that Sota’s conversational system was programmed to talk primarily with other robots, and not humans. “Voice recognition has always been very difficult for robots … Human beings should instead adjust to what robots can do.” In the video below, you can watch Sota interacting with CommU, another of Ishiguro’s robots that was unveiled at the same time. According to a story in the Japan Times, CommU and Sota “cannot understand what people are saying and are just acting out programmed conversations.”

This might suggest that Sota’s conversational abilities would be on the vacuous side, but this statement was presumably made before NTT and NTT Data entered the picture. One would expect NTT Data will bring its expertise in voice recognition and speech synthesis technologies to bear on the problem. NTT Data says it will develop apps for Sota, and deliver these via its parent company’s cloud networking services.

Sota’s conversational system. Source: NTT Data

NTT says Sota will be deployed in seniors’ homes as early as next March, and can be connected to medical devices to help monitor health conditions. This plays well with Japanese policy to develop and promote technological solutions to its aging population crisis.

It will be interesting to watch these two companies battle it out. Like Softbank, NTT is a Japanese telco providing phone, mobile, internet and network/technology services throughout Japan, but NTT has been around far longer, since 1952. According to Bloomberg, NTT’s 2014 earnings (10.9 trillion JPY) handily outstripped Softbank’s (6.7 trillion JPY), and the company ranks as one of the largest telcos in terms of revenue worldwide. While NTT is publicly traded, the Japanese government owns about one third of NTT’s shares. Sota is not NTT’s first foray into conversational robotics. Their subsidiary, NTT DoCoMo, have developed OHaNAS (video below) and Shabette.

Softbank, on the other hand, is somewhat smaller, but perhaps more agile. It has grown very quickly since its launch in 1981, and has made some astute moves in its short history, including partnering with Apple in 2008 to be the only official carrier of the iPhone in Japan (at least until the release of iPhone 4S). Softbank is also widely recognized in Japan for its forward thinking, creative and extremely popular marketing campaigns. While Softbank’s first big customer is Nestle (which is deploying Pepper as a customer service robot in its Nescafe stores this year), it’s clear from their recent promotional video (below) that they are still hoping to get a significant piece of the consumer pie by marketing Pepper’s abilities to recognize and appropriately respond to human emotions. 

https://youtu.be/3a4sZnLRvqk

Sota is joining a number of tabletop companions, including Jibo and Amazon Echo, in the race to market. Where Sota stands apart, though, is in its backing from a major telco (Pepper has this, too, but is not a tabletop device). In this sense Sota becomes not so different from a cellphone or tablet with voice recognition – it’s simply a marketing vehicle through which data services are sold. With a major telco and its existing customer base onside, Sota could be poised to grab a significant slice of the companion robotics pie.

On the other hand, consumers might be wary of “yet another” talking device if it fails to provide real social benefits over other technology forms, like cellphones and tablets. While Cory Kidd (Catalia Health) has shown through evidence-based research that social robots can offer measurable benefits over software alone, the ability to supply meaningful companionship or effect health benefits through behaviour change will surely depend on the sophistication of the conversational system. As Andra Keay of Silicon Valley Robotics puts it: “Social robotics right now is like the early days of the mobile phone industry. When many companies brought handsets to market that basically all provided the same core functionality. However, some models of phone became phenomenally popular and others sank like stones. It remains to be seen where Sota fits in the new social device spectrum.”

Whether or not NTT succeeds, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more telcos entering the consumer robotics space .

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• Natural language: The de-facto interface convention for social robotics
• The second wave of social robots is here

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The long-term rivalry between China and Japan, often characterised as the “World’s Most Dangerous Rivalry,” was exacerbated at the CIROS show held in Shanghai last week by a bowing Prime Minister Abe look-alike robot and an enterprising Chinese sales group.

The robot, dressed in a suit and bowing to visitors, according to the International Business Times, “came to be called ‘Apologizing Abe’, and photos and videos of the Abe look-alike robot have gone viral across social media in China. The ‘Apologizing Abe’ robot is being seen by many in China as a mocking reference to Abe’s refusal to issue a formal apology for Japan’s wartime atrocities during World War II, as the Japanese Prime Minister only expressed ‘deep remorse’ earlier this year.”

“It’s just a way to attract attention from visitors and with absolutely no political implication,” Wang Guofeng, sales agent for the reported manufacturer of the robot, Shanghai Jinghong Robot Co Ltd, told China’s Global Times. The company is selling the robot on its website for 39,000 yuan ($6,282), according to the report.

The CIROS show had over 100 exhibitors and a large crowd of business people, educators and consultants interested in finding out about how robots might help them in their shops, plants and factories. A report on the show, by people who attended, walked the floors, and talked with the exhibitors, will appear soon on The Robot Report.

Cyberdyne, the inventor of the HAL exoskeleton, is expanding their product line and Japan’s Haneda Airport is their first customer.

Three different types of robots will be put to work at the airport:

1. Industrial-grade floor cleaners will roam and clean carpets and floors along the corridors of the airport.
2. A waist-based mini-exoskeleton (shown in the top photo) for airport employees charged with moving and lifting baggage and goods. The lumbar support device reads bio-electric signals (BES) and supports the wearer’s motion by moving in accordance with the wearer’s brain signals.
3. A new mobile porter to carry and deliver passenger luggage and also airport vendor goods. Based on the mobile platform used by the floor cleaner, but supplemented with follow-me and other navigation software, the porter bots will assist passengers and airport staff with heavy luggage and will also deliver goods to airport vendors.

“The key goal of the project is to communicate Japan’s technology from Haneda Airport, a doorstep of Japan to the world. Haneda Airport is a hub for domestic flights, and it’s seeing international landing slots expanding, routes expanding and inbound passengers increasing and we have explored ways to take advantage of these characteristics and use the airport as a place where we can showcase the great things in Japan, such as its technology, industry, culture, history, and so on,” said Airport President Isao Takashiro.

If the trial program is successful, the airport and Cyberdyne plan to roll out these robots to other airports in Japan in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Source: Japan Times

SoftBank announced that their little Pepper robot will be available for sale beginning August 1st at the rate of 1,000 per month after selling out their first 1,000 Peppers in one online minute in June.

Priced at $1,611 for the robot, plus $200 per month for the online service and maintenance contract, and only available in Japan at the present time, SoftBank said it can make about 1,000 units per month and that there are about 200 apps available for the device.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a4sZnLRvqk

In addition to the apps, Pepper is upgrading its software to be able to memorize and retain data on emotional responses by a recognized person to better enable Pepper to express emotions that change according to how people interact with it. The video above shows an emotional woman coming home to Pepper, which recognizes her and her emotion, and attempts to make her happy. In another scene in the 4-minute video, Pepper interacts and plays with kids and adults in various activities.

Peppers are showing up in all sorts of places. This photo, from Xinhua, which appeared in the Want China Times, shows a colorfully dressed Pepper at a grocery promoting various store items.

SoftBank and their joint venture partners Alibaba and Foxconn, announced their new production schedule and app store. They also announced a software update to be included in the next production cycle and an August “sale” with details to follow.

Komekurayama Solar Power Plant owned and operated by TEPCO in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture. Source: Sakaori via Wikimedia Commons.

Japan’s power industry is currently centralized, but it aims to deregulate by around 2020. Coupled with this major structural market change, the expansion of thermal, nuclear and renewable power generation will place additional demands on the management of the country’s energy market. Researchers from the Namerikawa lab at Keio University are working with control engineers, power engineers and economists to designing mechanical and control algorithms that can manage this large-scale problem.

The Namerikawa Laboratory of the Department of System Design Engineering in the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology is conducting theoretical research of distributed control and cooperative control, as well as research concerning social applications in network systems thereof. As applied research, the Namerikawa Lab is conducting world-leading research in the areas of distributed and cooperative control of large-scale, complex systems connected to a network, formation control of unmanned aerial vehicles, and energy management of power networks.

“Since the earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011, energy has become an extremely important issue that now involves the problems of nuclear power generation and the use of renewable energy. With all these areas, we no longer have centralized management by power companies as we did in the past, and instead, various companies can now supply energy. In addition, we also now have the option of selecting the company that is best suited for our needs from amongst various energy companies. Hence distributed management is becoming a key issue. “

Japan is aiming to deregulate the power industry by sometime around the year 2020, and with this deregulation, the power network is expected to become extremely complex. In the past, information was consolidated and managed based on centralized management, but after deregulation, it will be necessary to analyze power systems on the demand side and the supply side to ensure stabilized frequency tuning, and an appropriate power market must be created.

Frequency controllers are used to control power generators, and by running the generator itself at a constant rotational speed, we should be able to obtain power with a stable 50 Hz, 100 V supply voltage. However, when we add renewable energy and other power sources to the power network, they act in a form that is like noise, so the first thing that we need to do is implement feedback control with respect to those additional power sources so that a 100 V supply voltage can be continuously maintained at 50 Hz.

In addition to thermal power generation and nuclear power generation, an expansion of renewable energy is also expected to occur in the future. With that expansion, the power supply side will need to implement frequency control in order to maintain a stable supply of power, while the demand side will need to be managed based on a new control theory.

“The second area we need to look at is controlling demand using what is called demand response. Basically, what we want to do is achieve a balance between supply and demand. We want to change the behavior of consumers by changing the price. By doing this, we can shift demand peaks and level out power usage, and as a result, we are basically able to control consumers. This isn’t merely a mechanical and electrical control problem. It also pertains to economic activity, so it is an economic problem and an electric power problem. Trying to figure out how to design the power market in order to deal with these issues has become an extremely large-scale problem, namely a market design problem. When a full deregulation of power transactions has been achieved, there will be a demand to design a power market that is fully capable of supporting this type of deregulation. Therefore, right now we’re working with control engineers, power engineers, researchers, and economists to research new mechanisms for power transactions.”

With consideration of the standpoints of both the power demand side and supply side, the Namerikawa Lab is leading the world in research to develop algorithms to find the most appropriate compromise between the two sides and to quantify satisfaction levels. The lab is also focusing its efforts on research to build sensor agent and multi-agent systems to determine in real time the status of spatially and temporally distributed energy and environments.

“We’re conducting research with a major goal of fusing together this type of energy technology and UAV control technology to achieve optimum management and optimum control of social systems and social infrastructures in the future.”

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See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Researchers from the Keio Institue of Pure and Applied Sciences (KiPAS) are working to reveal the mechanism by which newly acquired knowledge and information is transmitted and evolves among organisms with intelligence. This research is being done through pseudo-augmentation of body structures using a brain-machine interface, to investigate the process by which groups of individuals adapt to novel bodies and environments, using methods from the natural sciences.

Junichi Ushiba and Giulia Cisotto explain their work:

“Originally, I was very interested in the fact that we ourselves evolved from monkeys. The form of a body changes gradually through the process of evolution – for example, having a tail or not having a tail – and species that survive are using that specially evolved body effectively. Thinking about what this implies, even if a body changes, unless the brain that controls the body has the ability to adapt to the change, then naturally, an organism can’t utilize the adaptation effectively like the rest of its body. So, I think that one important keyword Concept in evolution is that the brain itself actually has the ability to adapt flexibly to external objects even more than we think it does. That’s precisely why I think there may be a process where a part of the body that has suddenly changed is incorporated, as if it was a part of the organism’s body, and the organism adapts and evolves accordingly. I wondered if this kind of process couldn’t actually be verified using methods from the natural sciences, and that was the motivation for this research.”

The method used in this research is to observe, in the laboratory, a group of about ten people who have an artificial tail, which can drive a brain-machine interface, attached to their body. Participants learn how to move the artificial tail, and attempt to use it skillfully, like their own body, through trial and error. They also share the ways in which they’ve learned to use the brain-machine interface with other people.

“In the beginning the person doesn’t know how to use the tail, but with some sort of training it’s possible for the person to modulate his or her brain activity in a way to control the tail.

The second step will be to study, using the same technology, some sort of heredity, so some sort of transfer of these new acquired skills to other people. So in the second step we will have more than one person in the same room and the first person, who has already acquired the skill to correctly move the tail, by moving around the room and talking with the other people, can transfer these acquired skills to the other people. So that in a certain period of time, all the other people gradually acquire the same skills, probably in another way, but with this technology we can monitor how each person, individually, can acquire the new skill.”

In physical training methods for sports, dance, and music, and in traditional arts and crafts, there are a variety of long-established approaches and styles, so universal principles for passing on such techniques have not been established. By contrast, the results of this research will provide scientific principles regarding control laws, learning processes, and ways of transmitting knowledge to other people. So, this research could contribute to scientific advances in industrial and cultural activities.

“Unless there are mechanisms that enable information that’s been correctly acquired by the mind to be transmitted to other people reliably, cultural activities that get sustained for hundreds of years, or go on to evolve further, couldn’t exist. Through this kind of research using tails, what I really want to understand is the process by which intangible information is created in the mind and transmitted to other people, so we can reveal some aspects of how culture and civilization took shape, using methods from the natural sciences.”

At JIMTOF 2014, Sugino Machine unveiled the JCC503 Robo, a CNC precision washer that positions parts with a numerically-controlled robotic arm and utilizes a high pressure washer to remove chips as small as 0.6 mm generated during machining processes.

“In order to achieve a washing precision to the level of 0.6 mm, steadily targeted washing is required. The process of steady targeting washing requires a device equipped with small but rigid machine tool technology that is capable of accurate positioning. The washing section of the device also combines technologies for various washing techniques such as high pressure washing, submerged washing, and the ability to select the pressurized flow rate from a variety of nozzles.”

This washer performs conveying, washing, and drying, and is connected directly with a machining line to process large parts such as an engine block. Compared to ordinary articulated washing robots, the precision washer’s cycle time is significantly shortened and the installation space is reduced to two-thirds while maintaining general versatility. This is achieved by adopting a robotic arm that is highly rigid and capable of rapid and agile movement.

“With conventional robotic washers the robots themselves are installed inside the washing rooms, and because of that relationship problems occur with the robots due to water permeation. The JCC503 Robo has all of the electrical components positioned outside the washing environment, so there are absolutely no problems due to water permeation.”

The robotic washer can be programmed using the universal CNC programming language, which has become a global standard, and as a result it can be easily incorporated into production lines.

“The JCC503 Robo was also exhibited at the 2014 IMTS Chicago show in the United States, and as a result, we are receiving a lot of inquiries and questions from leading automakers. With the adoption of this washer by these types of global companies, we hope to contribute to increasing vehicle engine performance through precision washing, as well as helping to resolve everyday environmental issues.”

Japan has the world’s largest population of at-work robots. But that prominence is threatened from recent coordinated efforts in the US, Germany, South Korea and China. Thus the emphasis by Prime Minister Abe to “make robots a key pillar of our growth strategy… to make Japan competitive again.”

Deregulation and strategic funding are at the heart of Japan’s and Abe’s 5-year growth plan and their New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

In one example described on CNBC, the team testing a brain surgery robot, had to shut down because of over regulation. They watched as the da Vinci surgical system became a commercial success while their and other Japanese prototypes languished in laboratories.

But now the new NEDO has recruited Kawasaki and Panasonic to make a rival to the da Vinci that could perform more intricate tasks including brain surgery. The new surgical robot thrust is a $42 million part of the overall $138 million framework. Part of that framework is regulatory reforms so that new robotic surgical devices will have an easier time with regulators and meet their goal of having rival products in clinical trials by 2019.

The Japanese government estimates the market for care service robots will reach $3.7 billion by 2035 from just $155 million today, and is encouraging products from Japanese companies to service those needs. They have also issued the world’s first safety standard for personal care robots to aid large corporations in their pursuit of the care marketplace. Panasonic, Yaskawa, Toyota, Cyberdyne and other Japanese companies have all announced care product plans over the next few years.

• Panasonic has begun selling a robotic bed that converts into a wheelchair and will also begin to sell a robot to assist the elderly with walking;
• Yaskawa will start selling a device to transport a bed-ridden person from the bed to a wheelchair and a robotic device for leg rehabilitation;
• Toyota will start leasing rehab robots for mobility-disabled patients;
• Cyberdyne’s HAL exoskeleton suit received approval from the new safety board earlier this year.

Other countries are also pushing robotics to the forefront of industrial policy: China, where sales grew 32-fold over the last decade to eclipse Japan as the biggest robot market in 2013, aims to make one-third of its own robots by 2015.

South Korea has a five-year plan to spend $500 million a year on its robotics industry, while the European Union has earmarked $125 million a year to its Horizon 2020 program that aims to pull in a further 2 billion euros in private funding.

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In our laboratory we develop various types of high-speed vision hardware and algorithms that can implement high-speed image processing with a sampling time from 10ms up to 1ms. High-speed vision can provide control data at the same sampling rate as that of the servo controller used for the robot actuators. This means that vision can control actuators just like other sensors e.g. an encoder. Although at present the camera is located off board the robot, it will be attached to the body in future iterations.

In addition, we developed a light-weight, high-power actuator for high-speed motion. Its torque per weight ratio is 3.5 times higher than that of previous products of same actuators.

Those technologies are used in various demonstrations of our robots such as:

• Janken (Rock Paper Scissors)
• batting
• raw egg catching
• regrasping
• dribbling
• picking up with tweezers
• flexible material handling
• book flipping scanning
• 1ms pan/tilt
• micro visual feedback

The running algorithm used in the ACHIRES robot is different from those typically used in other running robots. While most running robots use a method based on ZMP-criteria for maintaining stable and balanced posture, we introduced a very simple algorithm using high-speed performance of a sensory-motor system without ZMP criteria. The aerial posture is recovered to compensate for the deviation from the stable trajectory using high-speed visual feedback.

It took four years to develop ACHIRES, in part because analyzing robot dynamics that are faster than video capture rates requires high speed video analysis. You can see how the abilities of the robot have evolved since the project was first started in 2009:

Although ACHIRES is a research platform with no direct application at the present moment, the combination of high-speed vision and actuation could be applied to various types of high-speed intelligent systems, including high-speed robots, manufacturing systems, aircraft, microscope image control for bio/medical applications, and human-machine interfaces. We believe it will open new era of visual feed back systems.

More info:
Project Website
YouTube channel

Reference: T. Tamada, W. Ikarashi, D. Yoneyama, K. Tanaka, Y. Yamakawa, T. Senoo, M. Ishikawa: High Speed Bipedal Robot Running Using High Speed Visual Feedback, The Robotics Society of Japan The 32nd Annual Conference (RSJ2014) (Fukuoka, 2014)/1B2-03.

Oriental Motor has developed the αSTEP AZ Series of closed-loop stepping motor & Driver packages, which contain its patented mechanical absolute sensor, the ABZO Sensor.

“The ABZO Sensor in the motor is able to record the current position of the motor in the sensor itself. So, it enables high-precision positioning and homing without a home sensor or a limit sensor.”

With the majority of stepping motors, a backup battery is needed to store position data, and because batteries have a limited life, data can’t be stored for a long time. But the AZ Series doesn’t need a battery, so storing data isn’t a concern, even if the production equipment is stopped for a long time, or the unit is shipped overseas.

“What is so special about this new product ? Firstly, it enables you to set up an absolute system without the need for a battery. This feature eliminates the battery replacement cycle for the customer, making it possible to achieve a maintenance-free absolute system.”

By eliminating batteries and external sensors in this way, the AZ Series can reduce set-up costs, electrical connections, and footprint.

“In addition to the current line-up, Oriental Motor is planning to release a model with a gearhead. It also intends to develop variations by attaching mechanisms to the motor, similar to motorized actuators, using the current AZ Series. Ultimately, Oriental Motor plans to release these products overseas as well.”

This post originally appeared on Akihabara News. 

The Dyson 360 Eye autonomous vacuum cleaner went public in Tokyo on September 4th, and it got a lot of attention – enough to make almost any product from almost any industry jealous. There are several obvious reasons: Dyson products are aesthetically pleasing, Dyson products are unique, Dyson products perform well above average across the board, and Dyson is badass at marketing. Just look at their website; a company that makes cleaning machines and fans has a slicker web presence than … actually, than most companies that make or do anything at all.

Also, there’s the new device itself. The steadily plodding iterations of iRobot’s Roomba and its legion of copycats are old hat, and we aren’t really impressed anymore. While the 360 Eye performs the same task, it stands out, and just kinda has that new robot smell. The talking points/broad strokes/things to know are:

• Dyson 360 Eye: Sixteen Years of Research; $47 million Investment
• Cyclone Suction Tech: Miniaturized and Incorporated
• Navigation & Mapping: Innovative 360-Degree Visual Mapping
• App Enabled: Remotely Activate/Schedule Cleanings from iOS or Android
• Mobility: Purple Tank Tracks for Carpet, Hard Surfaces, and Obstacle Negotiation
• Color Variations: Fuchsia; Blue
• Dimensions: Width 242 × Depth 230 × Height 120mm; 2.37kg
• Price: Initially Estimated at $1,200
• Availability: Spring 2015; Japan Only, Other Markets to Follow

… and that last point brings us to:

Q. Why Japan first? Why Japan only (for a time, anyway)?

A. Japan is first now, because Japan was first then (and the market is huge)
In design and engineering circles, James Dyson is famous for meticulous attention to both the performance and the appearance of his company’s products. Lore tells of Dyson creating over 5000 prototype designs before deciding that he’d perfected his first ‘Dual Cyclone’ dust/dirt separation tech. We’re pretty sure someone’s counting scribbles on cocktail napkins there, but the point remains.

In the early 1980s, Dyson finally had a model he believed ready for production, but no household appliance makers in his native UK or in the US were interested. Whether accurate or not, lore also speaks of a Little Guy Makes Good story, i.e., he was dismissed by Hoover and friends because the home cleaning giants were worried about monkeywrenching their comfortable hold on a hugely lucrative market.

But guess who was interested: Japanese appliance company Apex, Inc. They licensed Dyson’s technology and in 1983 produced the G-Force Cleaner. The big pink vacuum was a hit, and it was with the earnings from this licensing venture that Dyson the man created Dyson the company – and things have gone quite well since. So, in a way, bringing the 360 Eye to Japan before all other markets is a full-circle .

And it’s a good place to start 
At the nation-state level, Japan is currently the world’s largest market for puck-shaped robotic cleaners , and there are a number of homegrown and foreign models available. However, as we reported last year, the Roomba, available in Japan for 10 years now, dominates with a 75% share. And it’s important to note that it’s 75% of a fairly large pie:

…Sales in Japan are booming. According to Seed Planning (a Japanese market research and consulting firm), since 2008 the home cleaning robot market has seen a 6-fold increase in yearly sales (approx. 380,000 units sold in 2012), and they project sales of 900,000 units in 2018. In a nation of about 128 million people, if realized that’s some serious market penetration. Given that homes in Japan generally aren’t all that big and don’t have a lot of carpeting, it’s all the more impressive. Among Japan’s massive, dominant middle-class, such expenditures are a luxury but not quite as economically extravagant as one might think…

That was us a year ago, and not a whole lot has changed. The Roomba still rules, but lookout iRobot – Japan’s known the Dyson name for 20 years, and the 360 Eye is coming for you .

http://youtu.be/4y_9V7O1pac

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“At my lab, research is focused particularly on mechanics and mechanisms in the area of mechanical engineering. Mechanisms and machinery are part of a field of learning that has the longest history amongst areas that pertain to mechanical engineering. This field is basically an area of learning that considers the relationship between two things, or in other words, the mutual relationship between one object and another and how to best achieve relative motion between the two.”

Based on the general concept of robotic engineering, various high performance parts centered on motors are used to convert one movement into another. As a result, costs can increase, and a robot can become very expensive even when it is being built to perform a simple action.

However, at the Morita Lab, researchers are aiming to achieve higher performance, lower cost robots with energy savings by considering robotic design from the mechanism level based on entirely new concepts.

“When we rely on motors, the performance of the robot can change based on the performance of the motor for example. In other words, the overall performance of a system varies according to the performance of the individual parts, and the result is a design that is dependent on the parts. However, by considering what type of machine you want and the mechanisms for the conversion of movement, you may be able to achieve more rational and beneficial movement. That’s the basic thought behind our research. Our research is focused on design methods that manifest some sort of movement using original mechanisms without relying on actuators and sensor technology where possible.”

New mechanisms that don’t rely on increasing the performance of the parts themselves are becoming visible and can be applied in a variety of situations. One of those mechanisms is a device called a self-weight compensation device.

This device uses spring force instead of motors and batteries to counter the weight of the arms and constantly maintain an appropriate posture.

With this device, even a heavy object can be moved with a small amount of force, and thus the device is helpful in lightening the load of a robot or operator and in improving precision.

“Put simply, we’re thinking about mechanisms and coming up with ideas. In other words, as we observe the mechanisms and natural world around us on a daily basis, we’re constantly thinking of ideas and wondering about trying new things. As we do this, sometimes we have what you could call inspiration as we come up with ideas that could possibly be put into practice. However, if we don’t confirm those ideas ourselves to determine if they are actually correct, we won’t know if they will function properly when we build them. What becomes important in a time like this is fundamental study. It basically becomes a field of learning.

When we consider things with focus on mechanical kinematics and dynamics, we can examine in advance whether or not the ideas that we come up with are actually reasonable. Then, if we feel confident that an idea will likely go well, we actually design and verify the idea, and we confirm the resulting designs by conducting tests to determine if they reliably function how they should. We’re conducting a lot of research like this.”

In the future as well, the Morita Lab intends to continue proposing new concepts of value for the creation of next-generation products using creative mechanisms.

Many governments have determined that robotics will play a significant role in contributing to their economy and have set up projects to fund bottlenecks to speed up the process.

Japan, the EU, France, the UK, and to a lesser extent, the US are all doing this.

Sebastian Cagnon, a French behavior architect at Aldebaran Robotics who blogs at About Robots, recapped the following governmental programs. I am excerpting and editing with his permission.

These last few months have seen so many announcements from countries investing in robotics with head spinning numbers, it gave me the idea to sum it all up in this post.

The wave started with the EU announcing a huge €2.8 billion investment program for the next 7 years. The EU Commission itself is investing €700M, and the rest is coming from the industry. The goal is to invest in every robotics sector, from industrial robots to domestic, from the fields to space, etc…

Another two announcements came from Japan: the announcement of Pepper by Softbank and Aldebaran (although not really a governmental funding project), and the Japanese government’s announcement that the future of Japan would depend on robots.

Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, announced on June 19th funding to make a “robot revolution.”  [You can see Sebastian at work with Pepper in the article’s news photo.] The funding sets up a task force to further develop Japan’s robot manufacturers and help them increase their revenues to $24 billion by 2020. In addition, Abe calls for a Robotics Olympics to be held at the same time as the 2020 Olympics being held in Japan.

Then came the British government on July 1st announcing RAS 2020. You can see here that they went big with the numbers, with $257M of investment planned for robotics! Their program’s focus is to create the conditions for a thriving robotics industry through a series of stimulating and support initiatives.

Next in line are the French. When we are not in strike, we make robots too! Our French Minister Arnaud Montebourg announced the creation of a private fund with €80M (~$108M) to invest in companies. The business minded robolutioner Bruno Bonnell is piloting the project. Robolution Capital plans to invest in companies and start-ups – even to front the early stages of development.

Before this rush of announcements, the US had announced in 2011 $500M invested in automation robots as part of a $2.2 billion Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, and Korea went for $316M in 2012!

But Korea just announced a new $2.7 billion plan in response to the American, Japanese and EU plans. Their new plan is to help existing robotics businesses increase their sales as well as investing in disaster recover and search and rescue robots and eldercare robots.

We are way past the MULTI-BILLION dollars in investments by now.

Thanks Sebastian.

At Keio University in Japan, the Ishigami Laboratory, in the Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, is investigating robotic mobility systems. The main mission of this group is to perform fundamental and applied research for application to extreme environments, notably lunar and planetary rovers.

“In our lab, we focus on field robotics that works for extreme environments.”

“For example, we investigate the interaction mechanics between robots and sandy surfaces, taking into account “off-the-road locomotion.”Also, because such robots would be deployed in unknown environments, we also work on vision systems such as cameras and laser rangefinders.”

In this research, there are three key concepts: vehicle-terrain interaction mechanics, autonomous mobility systems, and robotic device development.

In vehicle-terrain interaction mechanics, the researchers analyze vehicle behavior using a dynamic simulator. They’re also developing vehicle-slip compensation systems and in-wheel-sensor systems.

“In the study of interaction mechanics, we first focus on a wheel itself using a “single-wheel testbed.” We put just one wheel on the testbed, and perform experimental runs to obtain wheel force data under different sets of slip parameters. Meanwhile, we numerically calculate wheel force based on a wheel-sand interaction model we developed. Then, we compare the experimental results with the numerical ones, so we can evaluate how valid the interaction model is. Applying this approach to a whole robot-vehicle system, it is possible to simulate how the robot behaves dynamically in an unknown environment. That’s the key approach in this research.”

“Sand flow investigation has received especially close attention in recent years. In our lab, of course, we’ve recently taken such an approach, called particle image velocimetry, or PIV, which has been widely used in fluid mechanics. PIV enables us to clearly determine the sand flow, helping to develop a well-defined interaction model.”

In the area of autonomous mobility systems, the Ishigami Lab is working on environment recognition using laser rangefinders and camera images, as well as robotlocalization, path planning, teleoperation, and integrated sensory processing systems.

“For example, in an unknown environment, there aren’t any road signs, saying ‘there’s an obstacle here,’ or ‘turn right at the next intersection.’ Such obstacles should be detected by onboard cameras, or laser rangefinders which operate based on the time-of-flight principle (measuring the time from a laser emission to detection of the reflected laser.). In our research, we effectively utilize such devices to obtain 3D distance data or 3D environment information. Based on these data, the robot itself decides how to travel. Such systems are called autonomous mobility systems.”

“One typical point of our lab is, I would say, we’re focusing on mechanics as well as autonomous mobility, applying both hardware and software approaches.. In general, one lab has one specific point of interest for research, and looks more deeply into that, but in our lab, we work on mechanics and also on autonomous mobility systems, so we pursue several topics in parallel. Robots consist of integrated technology, so we consider them as total systems.
In addition, another feature of our research is, we consider that field tests are extremely important. We actually take our robots to outdoor environments such as volcanic regions on Izu Oshima and Mt. Aso, and operate them in rough terrain, to test how they act in actual environments.”

“The field of robotics comprises a variety of technologies. So, rather than sticking to a single academic discipline, we’d like students to do research from a broad perspective.”

Keystone Technology’s LED vegetable garden system is a cultivation system for indoor plant factories that uses LED lighting instead of sunlight. The most defining feature of the system on display at the company’s showroom in Yokohama is its 3-dimensional use of space. “This is a 5-tiered cultivation system. For smaller heads of lettuce, you can harvest about 1,500 heads in one month. If this were to be fit into a container of about 20 feet (6m), it would be equivalent to 970 sq. meters. Thus with 16 sq. meters, you could produce an amount that is on par with 970 sq. meters.”

LED lighting has three different wavelengths of red, blue, and green. This system can control the illumination strength according to the stage of plant growth. So, cultivation that would require two and a half months with land cultivation can be reduced to less than one month of cultivation and harvesting.

“In most cases, lettuce grown indoors is crisper and does not have the coarse quality of lettuce grown in sunlight. Because it is softer, it is a vegetable that is easy to eat even for elderly people. Although this may be unexpected, as for the nutritional components or more accurately the functional ingredients, it is possible to obtain a larger content by percentage of vitamins and polyphenols than with vegetables grown in sunlight.”

With this system, there will be differences in production capacity depending on the shape of the plant. Because plants with leaves that spread sideways take up more space, the number of such stalks that can be cultivated is reduced. On the other hand, plants that grow upwards can be planted with smaller intervals so a greater number of stalks can be cultivated.

“This plant factory itself has been here for over 20 years, but there is very little history of plants grown with LED lighting. In particular for plants grown with red, blue, and green lighting, the produce displayed at a plant factory exhibition in July 2010 was our company’s first ever.”

Commercially available since 2010, this system has been installed in various factories, offices and eateries nationwide, such as by a leading eating establishment that has installed 48 units in its processing factory in Kanagawa Prefecture. As workers in Japan’s agricultural industry age, it is becoming more difficult to obtain safe and delicious vegetables through traditional farming techniques. Keystone Technology will continue to offer new lifestyle ideas that provide cities with production capacity and integrate consumption and production.

Research and Markets, an online market research store, is offering a new $3,000 report, Global and Chinese Automotive Industrial Robotics Industry Report 2013-2014, with figures that differ sharply from the data provided by the International Federation of Robotics.

Excerpts from the Research and Markets report:

• Global industrial robotics market valued around $11.1 billion in 2012 but slumped by 17% to $9.25 billion in 2013.
• In 2013, global shipment of industrial robotics rose by 2%.
• Japan’s industrial robotics shipments fell by 7.3%.
• The average selling price of robots in Japan dropped from $47,200 in 2012 to $45,200 in 2013.
• The global industrial robotics market is expected to increase by 3.5% to $9.6 billion in 2014.
• Welding robots account for 50% of all sales.
• 50% of China’s demand for robots is for the auto industry and related parts.
• Globally 36% of demand is for the auto industry.

Excerpts from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) report:

• Industrial robotics sales in 2012 were $8.7 billion.
• Those figures do not include the cost of software, peripherals and systems engineering.
• If included, it would bring the value to be approximately three times as high, or $26 billion.
• No information is presently available for 2013, however, the IFR estimated that sales will increase about 2% in units for 2013.
• From 2014 to 2016, robot installations are estimated to increase by 6% on average per year (CAGR): about 4% in the Americas and in Europe, and about 8% in Asia/Australia.
• In China, the huge amount of robot investments between 2006 and 2012 resulted in a substantial increase in the robot density of the automotive industry: up from 51 to 213 robots per 10,000 employees.
• Potential for robot installations in the non-automotive industries is still tremendous, but it is also considerably high in the automotive industry among the emerging markets and in some traditional markets as well. This is mostly due to the modernization and retooling needed in these markets.

KOSMEK has developed a robotic hand changer that can switch between robot tools automatically – and with high precision.

“Our aim is to enable a single robot to be used for many purposes. With this hand changer, one robot can handle a whole series of tasks, from processing to assembly or inspection.”

“Our tool changer has three main features: high precision, high rigidity, and long life. For docking, we’ve incorporated a technology called dual contact surface resting. This has a structure called a movable taper sleeve, which enables docking with very high precision, reducing clearance to zero.”

Eliminating clearance between the master cylinder and tool adapter has made it possible to reduce the backlash and tip deviation that occur with ordinary changers, resulting in more accurate work.

The Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. (MRI) invites the robotics community to upgrade and to develop a technical catalog of robotic technologies to move and investigate inside nuclear reactor buildings, namely 1) a flight technology to enable access to the top floor of the nuclear reactor building and 2) a technology to move around and conduct investigations under water in a flooded reactor building.

MRI is entrusted by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy to develop machines and equipment for decommissioning the TEPCO Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was damaged during the East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011.

On December 21, 2011, the Government-TEPCO Council adopted a “Mid-to-Long-Term Roadmap towards the Decommissioning of Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Units 1-4”. The roadmap presents a three phase approach to decommission the plant over 40 years.

Japanese decommissioning robots

Sakura

Quince

Quince is a rescue robot designed for CBRNE disasters – situations involving Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive hazards. It was developed to perform on-site surveys on behalf of humans, such as fire-fighters. Hypothetical disasters include accidents at plants handling toxic substances, leaks of hazardous chemicals from chemical plants, explosions, and acts of terror like the notorious subway sarin incident. Risks are particularly high in enclosed spaces (underground and inside buildings), and expectations are high for robots as they will protect officers from secondary disasters.

Quince surveyed the inside of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. With some modifications, it was able to photograph the details of the buildings, create radiation dose maps, and sample radioactive materials floating in the air. It has been helping to reduce the radiation dose experienced by on-site workers and to shorten their work period.

Toshiba tetrapod

In November 2012, Toshiba Corporation unveiled a new tetrapod robot that can carry out investigative and recovery work in locations that are too risky for people to enter, such as the Fukushima power plant.

MEISTeR

In December 2012, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) unveiled a prototype of the “MEISTeR (Maintenance Equipment Integrated System of Telecontrol Robot),” a two-armed robot to assist recovery work after disasters or severe accidents by performing light-duty tasks in areas inaccessible to humans. By changing its arms’ attachment tools, the robot can perform various tasks such as carrying objects, drilling and opening/closing valves. Going forward, MHI will continue to improve and explore possible applications in crisis management.

New Japanese exoskeleton pushing into HAL’s (potential) marketshare
We of the robot/technology nerd demo are well aware of the non-ironically, ironically named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeletal suit developed by Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai’s also totally not meta-ironically named Cyberdyne, Inc. Since its 2004 founding in Tsukuba City, just north of the Tokyo metro area, Cyberdyne has developed and iteratively refined the force-amplifying exoskeletal suit, and through the HAL FIT venture, they’ve also created a legs-only force resistance rehabilitation & training platform.

Joining HAL and a few similar projects here in Japan (notably Toyota’s & Honda’s) is Kansai based & Panasonic-owned Activelink’s new Power Loader Light (PLL). Activelink has developed various human force amplification systems since 2003, and this latest version of the Loader looks a lot less like its big brother the walking forklift, and a lot more like the bottom half & power pack of a HAL suit. Activelink intends to connect an upper body unit, and if successful, will become HAL’s only real competition here in Japan.
And for what?

Well, along with general human force amplification and/or rehab, this:

福島第一原子力発電所事故 – Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster Site

Fukushima Cleanup & Recovery: Heavy with High-Rads
As with Cyberdyne’s latest radiation shielded self-cooling HAL suit (the metallic gray model), Activelink’s PLL was ramped up after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and resulting disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. Cleanup at the disaster area and responding to future incidents will of course require humans in heavy radiation suits with heavy tools possibly among heavy debris. While specific details on both exoskeletons’ recent upgrades and deployment timeline and/or capability are sparse, clearly the HAL suit and the PLL are conceptually ideal for the job. One assumes both will incorporate something like 20-30KG/45-65lbs. per limb of force amplification along with fully supporting the weight of the suit itself, and like HAL, PLL will have to work in a measure of radiological shielding and design consideration. So for now, HAL is clearly in the lead here.

Exoskeleton Competition Motivation Situation
Now, the HAL suit is widely known, widely deployed, and far and away the most successful of its kind ever made. No one else in Japan – in the world – is actually manufacturing and distributing powered exoskeletons at comparable scale. And that’s awesome and all due props to Professor Sankai and his team, but in taking stock of the HAL project’s 8 years of ongoing development, objectively one doesn’t see a whole lot of fundamental advancement. Sure, lifting capacity has increased incrementally and the size of the power source & overall bulk have decreased a bit. And yeah, no one else is doing what Cyberdyne’s doing, but that just might be the very reason why HAL seems to be treading water – and until recently, e.g., Activelink’s PLL, no one’s come along to offer up any kind of alternative.

Digressively Analogizing HAL with Japan & Vice-Versa Maybe
What follows is probably anecdotal, but probably right: See, Japanese economic and industrial institutions, while immensely powerful and historically cutting-edge, are also insular, proud – and weirdly – often glacially slow to innovate or embrace new technologies. With a lot of relatively happy workers doing excellent engineering with unmatched quality control and occasional leaps of innovation, Japan’s had a healthy electronics & general tech advantage for a good long time. Okay but now, thorough and integrated globalization has monkeywrenched the J-system, and while the Japanese might be just as good as ever, the world has caught up. For example, Korea’s big two – Samsung & LG – are now selling more TVs globally than all Japanese makers combined. Okay yeah, TVs ain’t robots, but across the board competition has arrived in a big way, and Japan’s tech & electronics industries are faltering and freaking out, and it’s illustrative of a wider socioeconomic issue. Cyberdyne, can you dig the parallel here?

Back to the Robot Stuff: Get on it, HAL/Japan – or Someone Else Will
A laundry list of robot/technology outlets, including Anthrobotic & IEEE, puzzled at how the first robots able to investigate at Fukushima were the American iRobot PackBots & Warriors. It really had to sting that in robot loving, automation saturated, theretofore 30% nuclear-powered Japan, there was no domestically produced device nimble enough and durable enough to investigate the facility without getting a radiation BBQ (the battle-tested PackBots & Warriors – no problem). So…ouch?

For now, HAL & Japan lead the exoskeletal pack, but with a quick look at Andra Keay’s survey piece here at Robohub it’s clear that HAL and the PLL are in a crowded and rapidly advancing field. So, if the U.S. or France or Germany or Korea or the Kiwis or whomever are first to produce a nimble, sufficiently powered, appropriately equipped, and ready-for-market & deployment human amplification platform, Japanese energy companies and government agencies and disaster response teams just might add those to cart instead. Without rapid and inspired development and improvement, HAL & Activelink, while perhaps remaining viable for Japan’s aging society industry, will be watching emergency response and cleanup teams at home with their handsome friend Asimo and his pet Aibo, wondering whatever happened to all the awesome, innovative, and world-leading Japanese robots.

It’ll all look so real on a 80-inch Samsung flat-panel HDTV.

Activelink Power Loader – Latest Model:

Cyberdyne, Inc. HAL Suit – Latest Model
http://youtu.be/xwzYjcNXlFE

SOURCES & INFO & STUFF
[HAL SUIT UPGRADE FOR FUKUSHIMA – MEDGADGET]
[HAL RADIATION CONTAMINATION SUIT DETAILS – GIZMAG]
[ACTIVELINK POWER LOADER UPDATE – DIGINFO.TV]

[TOYOTA PERSONAL MOBILITY PROJECTS & ROBOT STUFF]
[HONDA STRIDE MANAGEMENT & ASSISTIVE DEVICE]

[iROBOT SENDING iROBOTS TO FUKUSHIMA – IEEE]
[MITSUBISHI NUCLEAR INSPECTION BOT]

For fun:
[SKELETONICS – CRAZY HUMAN-POWERED PROJECT: JAPAN]
[KURATAS – EVEN CRAZIER PROJECT: JAPAN]

Note on the main image:
These images were scraped from the above Diginfo.tv & AFPBBNEWS YouTube videos, respectively. Because there just aren’t any decent stills out there – what else is a pseudo-journalist of questionable competency to do?

This piece originally appeared at Anthrobotic.com on January 17, 2013.

This compact explorer robot, called Sakura, being developed by the Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo) at the Chiba Institute of Technology, is the latest in their line of disaster response robots, and has been designed so it can enter and survey the basements of the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor buildings.

“Sakura’s mission is to go into the underground levels of nuclear power plants. It’s very compact, as it has to go down stairways just 70 cm wide, and turn around on landings that are also 70 cm.”

“Coolant water is leaking from somewhere inside the reactor, because no matter how water much is pumped in, the level doesn’t stay above 60 cm. But unless that space can be filled with water, the melted-down fuel rods can’t be removed safely. So, Sakura’s first job is to find out where the cracks are.”

Sakura will use its camera to look for cracks, but as the camera can’t see everywhere, Sakura also has a directional microphone to detect the sound of water.

An additional obstacle is that the stairway below ground is steeper than that above. So, Sakura also has improved climbing performance to handle steep gradients.

“The part above ground slopes at 40 degrees, and that below ground at 42 degrees. This difference of just two degrees is very hard for a robot to handle. What’s more, Sakura has to climb down, and then climb up, to the top of the suppression pool. That stairway slopes at 53 degrees.”

To minimize the operator’s exposure to radiation, Sakura has an automatic extension and retraction device for communication cables, and a plug-in charging system. Sakura is also made from specially selected materials, with the aim of making it maintenance-free for three years.

“To make the robot radiation-hard, the previous model, Rosemary, has a 2mm aluminum plate on the bottom, but Sakura has a 5mm stainless steel plate. Radiation is expected to be high in the underground areas, so the bottom surface is designed to provide at least some shielding.”

“We’ve only just got Sakura to move, so for the next month, we’ll be testing its mobility and durability. Once that’s done, we’ll test its ability to carry the necessary equipment on a stairway. Then, we plan to fine-tune Sakura by testing it with TEPCO.”

Who will take over future jobs and welfare services in a shrinking Japan, immigrants or robots?  According to a projection of the overall size and the age breakdown of the future population in Japan of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, set up by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 1996, the Japanese population will shrink over the next 100 years from 127,7 million people in 2005 to 44,59 million people in 2105. This projection is based on information from the Census, vital statistics, as well as research developed from various national representative surveys on population and social security problems conducted at the Institute.

The trend toward an aging society with a decreasing birthrate is expected to accelerate. Trends also show changes in family composition (increases in nuclear families, households with elderly persons only, single-parent households), changes in employment structure (increase of employees), women’s social advancement, and urbanization of population. In light of these changes, social support for the elderly, families, persons with disability, and the unemployed is becoming increasingly important.


Immigrants or Robots

The low birth rate there means foreign workers need to be recruited but there is a widespread opposition to immigration in the country as many Japanese value an ethnically homogenous society.

On the question of how widely Japan should open its domestic labor market to foreign workers, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stated in 2005, “If [the foreign labor] exceeds a certain level, it is bound to cause a clash. It is necessary to consider measures to prevent it and then admit foreign workers as necessary. Just because there is a labor shortage does not mean we should readily allow [foreign workers] to come in.

According to the Economist around 2 million foreigners live legally in Japan. The justice ministry counted 91,778 illegal residents in 2010, but the number, boosted by cheap Chinese labourers, may well be much higher.

As an alternative to immigrant workers robots are expected to take over many industrial and welfare jobs. According to the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people by 2025 , ranging from micro-sized capsules that detect lesions to high-tech vacuum cleaners.

In the agriculture and forestry sector, 450,000 jobs could be held by robots if harvesting and pruning robots spread widely. In services such as cleaning and delivery, robots could do the jobs of 1.41 million people.

Rather than each robot replacing one person, the foundation expects that robots could make time for people to focus on more important things. Japan could save 2.1 trillion yen ($21 billion) of elderly insurance payments in 2025 by using robots that monitor the health of older people, so they don’t have to rely on human nursing care.
Japanese automobile companies Honda and Toyota are heavily investing in new robotics technology to develop intelligent machines that in the future can support industry and service sector in the human shrinking society.

Japanese Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) will present a new human support robot (HSR) prototype at the 39th International Home Care and Rehabilitation Exhibition 2012, at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center in Koto Ward, Tokyo, from September 26 through 28. The robot is aimed to assist independent home living for persons with limited arm or leg mobility.  The prototype is an addition to the Toyota Partner Robot series and Assist Robot series that TMC is developing to assist people in their everyday activities.

http://robotland.blogspot.com