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Honda Updates ASIMO
kosmicki writes "Honda Motor Co. today announced the development of new technologies for the next-generation ASIMO humanoid robot, targeting a new level of mobility that will better enable ASIMO to function and interact with people by quickly processing information and acting more nimbly in real-world environments."
I'm someone in the robotics field, and yes it does, the same way everything in all research fields improves: gradually.
ASIMO provides a solid platform for researching humanoid motion control, mechanisms for humanoid robots, human-robot interaction, and robot-environment interaction. The researchers who work on it make advances in all these areas, just like the researchers who work on the Qrio, or any other robotic platform make advances in their areas.
Being a handy marketing tool is merely a side benefit of developing all these technologies that will be extremely useful in the future when Honda wants to be a big player in the robotics industry. It's called "thinking longterm."
It's newsworthy primarily because it's in humanoid form
As I replied below, replicating human form and movement is a tremendously difficult engineering task. A PR move? I don't think so. I believe I've heard that honda is planning to move human-like robots into their factories to revolutionize efficiency. General purpose robots that can move like humans and react intellegently to narrow tasks could drive down manufacturing costs through the floor.
Plus they are doing world-leading research on the advancement of human-like movement. Sorry if I sound like a fanboy, but they've put little advertizing dollars into it for it to be a PR move. However, they've spent billions developing it. They sure expect that investment to pay off down the line. I'm not sure I blame them.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
Japan will soon be facing a crisis in elder care. Their options are either to import tens of thousands of foreign nurses and aides or come up with a robotic solution. There is huge political and cultural resistance to importing nurses. The human and animal styled robots are seen as "friendly". The original ASIMO was the size of a grown man. That was seen as threatening, so they rebuilt him boy sized. The ability to adapt easily into a human environment (houses, apartments, nursing homes is also a driving factor)
http://redcone.net
Lets see. At the peak hight half of the total in-air time will have expired and Y velocity is 0. So d = 1/2(9.8)(0.05/2)^2)= 0.0030625m = ~3mm. So its not surprizing if you can't see that with the naked eye.
Force feedback sensors in the wrists aren't cheeting (sic) at all. I'd like to see you negotiate the task of handing someone an object or shaking hands without the ability to distinguish forces acting upon your wrist...
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM