GetRobo Blog English

[IREX 2011] Your Co-Worker may be a Robot Soon

 One of the coolest demos at IREX was the humanoid industrial robot NEXTAGE by Kawada Industries.  NEXTAGE, which made its debut during IREX two years ago, was designed specifically to work side by side with humans in the assembly line. Since then, about 10 Japanese companies have already implemented this robot in their manufacturing facilities, according to Takakatsu Isozumi, General Manager of the Mechatronics Systems Division at Kawada.  So for workers at these companies, the future is already here.

Two of these companies have made public that they are indeed using NEXTAGE to manufacture their products. One is Hitachi, which implemented NEXTAGE into its hard disk manufacturing line. The other is Glory, where NEXTAGE is busy assembling modules for ATM machines. NEXTAGE takes responsibility for repetitive tasks while humans focus on work that need frequent adjustments. 

The video below taken by science writer Kazumichi Moriyama shows NEXTAGE showing off at IREX many of its skills that it learned in the past two years, answering to the various requests from real customers. The fact that NEXTAGE is a real product being used in real life made it stand out from the other humanoids at IREX which are still in the research phase. The basic model of NEXTAGE costs about 7.5 million yen and typically it will cost around 10 to 12 million yen per unit with customized software and peripherals.  

One of the keywords in humanoid robotics these days is Co-X: Developing robots to become Co-Workers, Co-Inhabitants, Co-Defenders, etc. NEXTAGE is one of the first products that realizes this goal.

So far, Kawada is focusing on the Japanese market, but eventually they are planning to sell NEXTAGE abroad too.

Isozumi-san and NEXTAGE - shoulder to shoulder.

[IREX 2011] Yaskawa's new service robot SmartPal 7 plus Kinect

 Industrial robot giant Yaskawa Electric also announced its new version of the service robot SmartPal. Can't find the press release of the new robot as of now, but it's slimmer and smarter than SmartPal 5. (SmartPal 6 never made its debut in public since it was strictly for research.)

 At IREX 2011, it was being controlled using Kinect. The scenario is to place the robot hundreds of kilometers away at your elderly mother's house and you can help her remotely via the robot.

 Photo below is SmartPal 7 being controlled remotely and picking up a toy from the floor.

 

 Here's what it looks like on the controller side.

[IREX 2011] Yaskawa MOTOMAN will decorate your smartphone

 Remember Yaskawa-kun, the bubbly singing robot that can make you an ice cream cone? Well, like any other worker that needs to continue to build up his resume to keep up with the economy, he has a new skill. He can decorate your smartphone with rhinestones!

 With the precision and tireless character of an industrial robot, which he is under his cute head, he will complete a decoration that may take a human hours, in a matter of minutes. Glue, paste, glue, paste, glue, paste........

 Ice cream man Yaskawa-kun was highly popular in Japan, but there was always the extra hurdle and precaution to put it to use at events because he was dealing with food. So now he doesn't have to worry about that. And look at his nice work!

[IREX 2011] These candy colored robots will tell you a story

 There is a new humanoid robot in town!  Meet Matanya from Singapore!

 

 

 What's cute about Matanya is how you can press it's arm down to tell it to continue with the story. It's a little like flipping a page of a book. If you want to listen to a part over again, just press down the other arm. That's what Kenichi Kato, who designed the robot, is doing in this photo. 

 It's the first robotic product from Katotec.  The robot now costs 200,000 yen (about 2,600 dollars) and the business model is to sell stories online. Katotec will sell you its original microcontrollers in case you want to build your own humanoid robot too.

[IREX 2011] Volcano Rover Prepares for Fukushima

 Dr. Yoji Kuroda, Director of the Autonomous Mobile Systems Laboratory at Meiji University, came back from the mountains just in time to show off his volcano explorer robot Micro6 at IREX 2011. The robot had spent 2 weeks exploring on its own at a volcano on a Japanese island before it was picked up by Dr. Kuroda and shuttled to the exhibition hall.

 Being able to explore a volcano autonomously for 2 weeks is pretty cool in itself, but what makes this story even more interesting is that the robot was testing some new software that can be used for a future radiation monitoring robot in Fukushima. Right now people are not allowed inside the 20 km radius of the nuclear power plant and there is the need for an autonomous robot to measure the radiation within that area. The low power consumption system that enables the robot to operate for a long period of time and teleoperating techniques that Dr. Kuroda's team have been developing for the volcano rover will come in handy for this type of robot.

 Exact plans to actually implement such robots in Fukushima is still unclear at this point. The biggest issue is deciding who is going to pay for this kind of robotic mission.

 Dr. Kuroda (photographed below) says his lab is building a new robot specifically for Fukushima and will be testing that in the next few months.