Topic: The Cylons are coming

[Lesmond (OP)]

Cylon (Battlestar Galactica) are coming it would seem...

You've seen plenty of robots  and androids in the news, but you've probably never seen anything as astonishing as HRP4, which promises to be cheap, powerful, and the most sci-fi-like bot built to date.

AIST and Kawada Industries just revealed the new humanoid machine, and by making it look "athletic" they've also turned HRP4 into a real-world version of the fictional life-assisting robots you've seen in countless sci-fi movies (the older generation of 'droids in Will Smith's I, Robot movie for one). He's five feet tall and weighs just 86 pounds, including battery. Bipedal android robotics seems to have evolved swiftly enough that new machines don't need props like Asimo's chunky battery backpack.

Nevertheless, HRP4 has 34 degrees of freedom in movement, including full arm articulation and simple hand moves, which give it a grasping force of 1.1 pounds. It uses standardized parts, runs a Linux core beneath AIST's proprietary control software on an Intel Pentium M CPU and was designed to be low-cost. Still, the robot can recognize and react to voice commands, and has simple object and face recognition built-in.

Check out HRP4 in the video below--it's eight minutes, but worth it.

HRP-4のデモ

Source

[Ken]

The technology keeps getting better all the while for all of the parts and pieces that go into a device like this robot. Just think of how computers have advanced over the past 10-15 years for an example, plus some of the materials that would be used for the body, like Kevlar, Carbon-fiber, Plastic... etc.

As one person said on the fastcompany.com, "This is absolutely amazing. Just thinking about pushing off all my humdrum daily chores on this guy is getting me excited."  :08:

Did you spot the potential here? We've shown you all sorts of robots recently, from butlerbots to virtual-presence telecommuting devices, but they're all pretty simple and decidedly a-human. HRP4 may not be jam-packed with sensors, ultra-sensitive force-sensitive skin or gigaflops of artificially intelligent brain power ... but he looks humanoid, walks like we do, and seems to be decidedly simple in terms of construction. He is, quite definitely, a sign of the guest-greeting, vacuum-pushing, room-tidying, mail-delivering household robot revolution about to come.

[Ken]

The plasticpals.com has some info on pricing.

Japan?s rapidly aging population and slow birth rate are galvanizing research in robotics as a potential countermeasure to the predicted shortages in the work force of tomorrow.  The next step towards efficient robot helpers is the HRP-4, the latest humanoid robot developed at AIST (Japan?s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology) and Kawada Industries.

The use of standardized parts and an optimized mechanical design has lowered its production cost, which means labs will be able to purchase one for much less than its predecessors.  At 26,000,000 JPY ($306,000 USD) each, they?re almost $100k cheaper than Willow Garage?s PR2; they hope to sell between 3 and 5 units per year.  Like the HRP-4C, it runs Linux and AIST?s proprietary OpenRTM-aist control software, and its backpack has room for a small laptop computer which can be upgraded whenever necessary.

[Skhilled]

Wow! My son would love those. He is into robotics and takes a class for an hour right after school. It involves using legos, motors, etc.