Is there a market for luxury robotic pets?

Reuters

July 13, 2001 5:21 AM PT



NEW YORK–Caring for a real dog can be expensive, but the latest generation of robo-pups will set you back $200 or $1,500–somewhere between some folks’ weekly food bill and monthly rent or mortgage payment.

Despite a U.S. unemployment rate of 4.5 percent, the makers of i-Cybie and AIBO believe there’s a definite market for their luxury robotic pets. Ditto for the top executives of some upscale retailers who are betting on these high-tech pups to help make Christmas 2001 a merry one.

i-Cybie, the $200 robotic dog from Tiger Electronics, a division of Hasbro Inc., should be in stock in August at FAO Schwarz, said David Niggli, chief operating officer of the luxury toy retailer.

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Biped Robot Database

Biped Robot Research in the World



Here is the list of research sites which have intensive biped research project.

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Humanoid Robot H6

Perception-Action Integrated Humanoid Robot : H6

Human-shaped robots are well-suited for operating within environments designed for real humans. In order to provide an experimental research platform for full-body integrated sensing and control, the prototype Humanoid Robot “H6” is currently being developed at the JSK Laboratory at the University of Tokyo.

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Specifications : Construction of the first prototype was completed in June 2000 by Aircraft and Mechanical Systems Division of Kawada Industries, Inc. The height of the robot is 1370mm, the width is 590mm, and the mass is 55kg including 4kg of batteries. The robot has a total of 35 degrees of freedom (DOF): 6 for each leg, 1 for each foot (toe joint), 7 for each arm, 1 for each gripper, 2 for the neck, and 3 for the eyes. All major joints are driven by DC motors and Harmonic drive gears. An onboard PC equipped with dual PentiumIII-750MHz processors running RT-Linux is used for real-time servo and balance compensation, as well as coordinating high-level 3D vision and motion planning component software modules. The system is connected to the network via wireless ethernet. Thus, the robot is fully self-contained (it can be operated without any external cables).

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ASIMO 2

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Honda P3 One of the great challenges of the future is the development of concepts for mobility beyond the street, in the immediate, natural environment of human beings.

Not until a robot is able to move in this environment will it one day be a true aid to human beings and earn the attribute of “humanoid robot”.

To come closer to this goal, Honda developed P3, which will now be described to you in more detail.

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Will robots ever learn to love?

The film A.I. has sparked a debate on artificial intelligence, so Roger Highfield asked leading researchers if man could build a machine with emotions.

A robot under development by Dr Stefan Schaal’s team at the Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab, University of Southern California

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Today’s Cyborgs Get An Eyeful

elcom.co.uk – 7/4/01

Thad Starner is lying flat on his back on his office couch, staring at the ceiling. Don’t bother him. He’s working.

A fascinating article giving a view of the future from USA Today.

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e-Newspaper: Record Searchlight – Redding.com News SHNS Science & Technology

Me and my robot …

Tom Kisken

Scripps Howard News Service

Adonis dances the Macarena to show how robots can simulate human movement.

Goggle-eyed Kismet is programmed to express lip-clenching anger and eyebrows-arched surprise.

And University of Southern California researchers work on teaching robots teamwork so they can cooperatively build a shelter to house astronauts on Mars.

Some academicians predict the day when machines evolve into feeling, intelligent, decision-making humanoids is still a century away. But others suggest that within 20 years robots could be built as companions for special-needs children or as caretakers that remind home-bound seniors to take medication.

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PINO the Humanoid Robot

Reasons for Designing the Humanoid Robot

What reasons are there for designing the humanoid a robot? Existing humanoid robot research centers on either the development of a humanoid machine from a mechanical engineering approach or, conversely, an analytic machine by which the mechanisms of thought ? or intelligence can be simulated and put into effect by a freely moving body reacting to diverse sensory information.

However disparate the means by which humanoid robot research has evolved, both are concerned with the human form as representative of its mechanical features. Aesthetics, we believe, will play an even larger role in the design requirements of the robot in order to grow as an industry the way automobiles and computers have evolved ? the aesthetic element playing a pivotal role in establishing harmonious co-existence between the consumer and the product. Accordingly, research that employs an element of aesthetics was considered also as a technological issue and inseparable from the robot’s primary mechanical functions.

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Expert urges people to think differently about our robot allies

By SACHIKO HIRAO

Staff writer

While the robot craze that has gripped Japan may give the impression that our future mechanical friends will resemble humans or animals, Takeo Kanade thinks otherwise.

Director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Kanade predicts that robots will increasingly become a feature in ordinary people’s lives.

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