Sony Claims First Running Humanoid Robot

News for nerds writes "Sony Corporation announced the new development of Sony's humanoid robot, enabling integrated motion control for walking, jumping and running on feet. By applying this technology Sony has created the world's first running humanoid robot 'QRIO'. Japanese PC watch has an article with pictures and movies of QRIO running at 14 meters per minute, sometimes with both feet leaving the floor (= running)."

Comments

Babelfish translation..

[rale, the]

here
- rale

Re:Calling Bill Joy

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

May i correct you, it was not a "Robin Williams Movie", it was an Isaac Asimov book.
And, yes, The book was as bad as the movie . )

Re:Calling Bill Joy

[ColdGrits]

Actually, may I correct your correction? It wasn't an Isaac Asimov book, it was an Isaac Asimov short story :-) (A book of the same name was published, which was a collection of short stories by Asimov).

And the short story was miles better than the film...

Re:Not Bill Joy...

[CommandNotFound]

...I think you mean Call Isaac Asimov, who wrote _The Bicentennial Man_ upon which that movie was based. Asimov probably inspired a lot of roboticists and tackled a lot of these human/robot ethical delimas in his fiction, including the controversial Three Laws of Robotics, which I'll repeat here for completeness (if you don't know these, you should go to the library and read some Asimov. _I, Robot_, is a good start; it's a collection of his short stories about robots.

Three Laws of Robotics:

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 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.

old news

[savuporo]

Check out http://plyojump.com and its accompanying blog for very good summaries on Japanese humanoid robot developments. ( the site seems to be down at the moment, but google cache helps )
QRIO was presented already back in august, at Robodex2003. QRIO is a direct followup, "production release" for previous development codenamed SDR-4XII.

There were other bots presented at Robodex, that were able to perform jumps and even somersaults.

The most interesting two IMO, are not megacorps entertainment bots ASIMO, AIBO etc, but humanoids that are of practical use or very low-budget, like HRP-II that is able to drive a backhoe, remotely assisted

And other one, SILF developed by a single person ( student ? ) on obviosly quite a low budget. Still, the bot is able to perform jumps.

Re:Distance

[cyberlync]

This robot is also about a foot tall. If we scale the robot up it would be something like 84 meters per minute. Of course, thats assuming scaling works and it can be scaled. Also I havn't taken into account any other factors. Someone who actually knows about bio(robo?)mechanics may actually want to chime in here.

QRIO Home Page

[jpatokal]

The obvious missing link:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/

And in English too!

Re:Not Bill Joy...

[spongman]

Not forgetting, of course:

0. A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm [1].

with the 1st law being appropriately modified.

[1] Robots And Empire (ch. 63)

Re:The military should purchase this technology...

[Maskirovka]

Give the robots a Kevlar skin, then load up soldiers' and Marines' rifles with training rounds. Then set the robots running around a mock battlefield to give our guys more realistic practice.

Robots with assault rifles and blanks:
Cost: $$$$$$$
Battery life: 20 minutes
Be able to tactically think or move like a human? No.
Robots have more moving parts to break then people or paintball guns, hence more maintinence.

Divide your marines into two teams. Use either laser tag rig or paintball guns.
Cost: $1000 per paintball gun (built to look and feel like their standard issue equipment). 2000 paintablls ~$50. A lot less than m16 rounds. Lasertag would cost a bit more. $10/each for goggles.
Except for the ammo, everything get reused.
Soldiers would be competing with other soldiers with the approximatly same level of training and tactical ability as themselves.
No danger of injury provided they keep their goggles on.
Downside: paintballs can't acheive the muzzle velocity bullets can, and therefore don't have nearly the range.

Press Release Text

[cloudless.net]

World's First Running Humanoid Robot

Tokyo Japan, December 18th, 2003 - Sony Corporation today announced the development of dramatically enhanced motion of Sony's humanoid robot, enabling integrated motion control for walking, jumping and running. By applying this technology to QRIO, which is one of Sony's technology platforms, Sony has successfully created the world's first* running humanoid robot.
(* As of Dec. 18th, 2003, based on Sony's investigation, as an autonomous robot with internalized control system and power supply system)

In order to achieve stable motion control for conventional humanoid robots, either one or both feet needed to be touching the floor and, from the opposing force produced by the contact with either of the feet, motion such as walking was controlled. This is the control theory based on the so called ZMP (Zero Moment Point) stable range and forms the foundation of robot motion control.

The new 'walking, jumping, running movement control' technology which Sony has developed this time accomplishes motion involving both feet losing contact with the floor at the same time, which means it is a motion control technology enabling stable running and jumping. The seamless addition of motion control based on this new technology enabling running and jumping, has lead to the development of a robot having outstanding motion capabilities.

Furthermore, together with this new control technology, in addition to powering-up and enhancing the output torque of Sony's original and unique robot actuator, ISA (Intelligent Servo Actuator), a new hardware unit suitable for the running feature has been developed. By implementing this newly developed ISA in QRIO and optimizing the new control system, Sony has successfully created the world's first running feature for a humanoid robot.

Sony will continue to utilize the QRIO platform for various technological advances, leading to outstanding entertainment robots highly suited to the co-existence with humans and to the development of various technologies which can be applied to other Sony products. In addition, QRIO is Sony Group's Corporate Ambassador ;in fulfilling this role, QRIO will take advantage of various opportunities around the world to communicate Sony's vision of a world of dreams, entertainment and curiosity as well as introducing the technology that makes this vision a reality.

QRIO's Homepage : http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/

My English Translation

[mattr]

This is pretty cool, I guess Honda's on the run! (Sorry)

QRIO sounds like "Curio" i.e. Curious. Actually it means "Quest for Curiosity" and QRIO is also the name of a tiny Aibo-like robot Sony made in 2000 with the same exterior form. The big running robot was apparently called the SDR Series but after many changes (and names?) it got christened the QRIO as the little guy's successor. So I guess you could buy the little one and imagine it is similar to the big one.. it has some of the same technology too.

The interesting part is that the robot is really running, although not with the big strides you normally expect in human running. As opposed to walking there is actually a short timespan when both feet are in the air (20-40 milliseconds). When it lands it is really loud and you really feel like it is running. Also it is able to grab things so it can run with a ball, do a Japanese fan dance, etc. Apparently it can also get programmed to do tons of really hokey gestures.

Here are a couple links and finally a translation I made.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200312/0 3- 060E/ A separate English press release on the big one
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/ English letter from CEO with a complex Flash-based piece about QRIO (the small one), its technology, inventor, visits around the world. There is a picture of a hand knocking it over (it can get up which is cool) and the technology section is actually pretty interesting. Actually it is really confusing since you can't tell how big these things are in pictures all the time, I thought at first that this was about the big robot! The small robot uses a special actuator technology which lets it move and dance fluidly, no idea if the big one has this too.

Translation of http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/1218/sony. htm

Latest News 12/18
QRIO Ran! Introducing the QRIO, Evolved by Sony
- Acheiving the first running bipedal robot in the world -

Announced Dec. 18

On the 18th, Sony held a press conference showcasing the new technology behind their bipedal robot. There, Sony announced QRIO which has newly evolved from the bipedal walking of the past into a "running robot".

QRIO is a miniature humanoid robot announced in 2000 which could walk on its two feet. At the time it was called the "SDR Series", but afterwards went through various improvements and was renamed the QRIO in September 2003.

Toshitada Doi, Executive Vice President (photo)

The technology announced today enable walking, jumping, and cruising around. According to Sony Executive Vice President Toshitada Doi, "There is a harsh competition going on around the world in getting bipedal robots to run, but the QRIO is the first standalone robot with its own control and power systems in the world that has succeeded in running."

"Running" is defined as "leg-powered change of position including an airborne state in which both of the robot's legs leave the ground". In fact with the QRIO, there exists an instant of floating in the air that lasts about 20ms when walking and about 40ms when running.

Aside from basic movement straight ahead, it can also run from side to side and in a circular fashion. Also, from a standstill it can seamlessly change its movement for example walking -> running -> jumping.

According to Mr. Yoshihiro Kuroki of [Sony's] Entertainment Robot Company, in order to carry out the bodily control for walking and jumping, high performance control of sensors which measure its situation, road surface adjustment, adjustment to deal with external forces, shock absorption control and so on.. but from a mechanical standpoint it is apparently not greatly different from the old QRIO. Looking at the announced robot from the outside, one could not tell the difference from the old one.

(illustration captions)
1. A graph measuring the force on the floor. When jumping and running there is, though slight, a length of time in which t

more vidoe links

[icebones]

Here some more video's of the little guy

http://cds301.bit-drive.ne.jp/shp/02-27-QR103/

http://cds301.bit-drive.ne.jp/shp/02-27-QR102/ http://cds301.bit-drive.ne.jp/shp/02-27-QR101/ http://x-dogs.co.uk/QRIO/QRIO.wmv http://x-dogs.co.uk/QRIO/QRIO2.wmv

These take a minute to start.

qrio_1.avi qrio_2.avi qrio_3.avi qrio_4.avi qrio_5.avi qrio_6.avi