Humanoid Robot HR-2

Denix writes "The HR-2 humanoid robot was constructed during a period of three months at Chalmers University in Sweden. It has 22 degrees of freedom which enables it to easily move around imitating human motions. The robot is also equipped with stereovision giving it possibilities to perform hand-eye coordination. For that task an artificial neural network is evolved. Furthermore, the artificial brain is capable of tracking faces as well as recognising them. The HR-2 is also able to speak. The website also contains a movie (35.5 MB) of the HR-2 in action."

Comments

Humanoid vs task-specific robots

[Arpie]

Sure, as a geek I love the idea of humanoid robots, but in practice how useful can they be?

Aren't in most situations robots designed specifically for one task (or a small group of tasks) better?

My Roomba robot vacuum broke a few weeks ago and it took 2-3 weeks to be replaced. If that same robot also washed my clothes, did my dishes and cooked my food, I'd have been in bad shape.

[end serious post]

[start joke]
Come to think of it though, I'd definetly spend serious money on a robot that vacuums the floor, washes clothes, does the dishes and cooks... and does not demand attention, new clothes, a wedding... Heck, let's go make these humanoid robots already! And, of course, they'll need some specific, er... anatomic, parts and capabilites. And they absolutely must have an off and mute switches.

This is a little more advanced

[Sheetrock]

Than the one I saw at a Japanese facility, which had no adaptive neural network. However, it was capable of voice- and image-recognition, which helped it perform the following tasks:

• Dispense coffee, refilling when empty
• Pick up and deliver print job from the company printer
• Write simple routines, such as C++ class templates, and fix broken HTML pages
• Greet visitors and direct them to the appropriate department if expected
• Allowed customers to choose from a number of top music artists, expelling a shrink-wrapped disc and playing the most popular song off the album as it danced around
• Stack and unstack a series of boxes by color
• Empty garbage, albeit into a pile that was then shovelled into a dumpster

In a way, I think the 'intelligence' behind these robots is more than enough; now it's time to find practical uses for them.