ATR Visit (Part 4) - ATR-Robotics

Although ATR does a lot of basic research and in many cases receives funding from the Japanese government, it is not a government research lab but a private corporation held by 121 corporate shareholders including the telecom giants NTT and KDDI. And since it is a corporation, it does need to make money.

To do so, ATR has set up a subsidiary called ATR Promotions, which focuses on trying to commercialize technologies developed at ATR. And in the field of robotics, ATR Promotions has formed another company - ATR-Robotics. ATR-Robotics sells robot kits that were commercialized based on technologies developed at ATR.

One of these robots is Robovie-X - a small humanoid - which sells for 94,500 yen (about $860). There is a newer and cheaper version Robovie-X Lite which goes for 69,300 yen ($630). Robovie-X is programmed using Robovie-Maker, a motion editing software developed at ATR. Below is a glimpse of the Robovie-Maker and a kick motion created with the software. (Other versions of Robovie have won international robot soccer competitions.)