Robodex 2003 Shows Robots Ready for Work & Play

Roland Piquepaille writes "Robodex 2003 was held last week in Yokohama, Japan. At this show 38 companies, colleges and other organizations introduced more than 90 different types of robot. Many were designed to handle tasks too dangerous for humans and assist people in their daily lives. In this column, you'll find a selection of articles and short quotes about this trade show which attracted about 70,000 visitors. I also built my own Robodex 2003 Fashion Show (the whole page weighs 172KB). You'll find there pictures of many new robots, including Banryu, developed by Tmsuk, Inc., which will control your home while you're away, Doki, the world's first gender-aware robot, built by Intelligent Earth, from Scotland, or the Comet III, a one ton mine-clearance robot from Chiba University. There are also pictures of new machines from Sony, Mitsubishi or Fujitsu among others."

Comments

Robots and your home

[st0rmcold]

New generation hackers, break into the robot while someone is away and have him unlock all the doors and the safes in the house :P

Call me a skeptic, but I don't like robots doing too many tasks, let's not forget human's make robots, and some humans are crooked, so who knows when you will end up with an influence robot?

Runtimes/power sources?

[Hayzeus]

I'd be interested in the power sources being used for some of these humanoid robots, as well as the actual run times.

Some of these guys are tethered, but for those that aren't I'd really love to know what they're using for power, and how long these robots can continue to run. I can't seem to find much (except for Asimo, which uses NiMh batts). Anybody else find some more solid specs?

Re:Runtimes/power sources?

[mrtroy]

I have no idea why your post got trolled.

I seriously would like to see the power sources being used as well, it provides an interesting perspective of robots...

What would be ideal is have two sets of removeable batteries for the robot, as well as one smaller battery which always remains in the robot. Then, when the robot senses its power is getting low, it goes to the battery charger and switches batteries, while using auxilary power during the time when he does not have either battery in him.

Similarly, another option could be a "sleep" mode where when the robot senses his batteries are going low he goes and sits in a charger until he is replenished.

This is a very important part about robotics, because if I buy a robot to clean my floor and fetch me my beers, I sure as hell do not want to carry the 500 pound hunk of metal to his charger when he runs out of juice!

Re:Runtimes/power sources?

[Hayzeus]

That's OK. The occasional 12-year old moderator is just par for the course -- I have karma to burn anyway.

Given the current state of power storage technology, the best approach is probably trips to a power-charging station during quiet times (as you mentioned). I'm working on a reliable method of doing this with my web-cam bots, which would allow longer run times with smaller bots, since they need not be so large to accomodate big batteries. Smaller = cheaper, so...

I'm still wondering if any of the humanoid bots can do this in typical unconstrained indoor environments. Not only does the base station need to be found reliably, which requires decent localization capabilities, but the robot needs good obstacle detectionn. I've always figured this would be pretty hard to do an a largish, actively balanced humanoid robot because of sensor coverage issues.

Why humanoid?

[rf0]

How important is it for robots that are around the house to look human. I mena I can understand that people will most likely be more accpeting of them but are they the best design for whatever job they are doing? Or are they really just showing what we can?

I know that walking is a huge problem for robots especially going up and down stairs

Rus

Laws of robotics

[Tomato3]

I'm sure most of you herehave heard of Asimov's three laws of robotics.

The Three Laws of Robotics are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

My question is: when do robots become capable enough that we start worrying about them having ethics programmed into them? We already have robots that can walk around and watch the house. When do we start to worry that they're dangerous? Do we wait until they've hurt someone?

Usefull at all?

[aberant]

Maybe my perspective is slanted on this issue because i don't bring in six figures, but most of these robots seem completely useless. I mean $16k for a robot that guards your house? You can get a mean dog for much cheeper and he will do a better job. A gender aware Bot? Man i would hate to think how much that would cost when i could go down the block and pick up a girl that was a professional at "being gender" aware for much cheeper. Don't think i am some anti technology idiot, but it just seems we got that human thing down pretty good and pretty cheep, so maybe we should have robots that act like something unique or fill a valid market. And secondly, how do you think these robots will feel when you realize they are useless and toss them away. Then there might be a market for robot psychologists. Maybe that was their plan all along!