Soft Robot wins Grand Prize 2010
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| METI: Safe Human-Robot Interaction |
Since 2006, METI has presented the "Robot of the Year" awards in recognition of contributions to market creation and the most promising robots of that year. The award program has resulted in an increase in the number of inquiries received by the winning companies and otherwise helped to achieve increased visibility for robots and achieve market creation.
Venture Business Award was awarded to the Pork Ham Automatic Slitting and Deboner Robot HAMDAS-R developed by Mayekawa. It is a mechanized slitting process assumed to be the most difficult for automation by optimally controlling knives incorporated in vertical multi-joint robots. This system has achieved high or higher yield ration than a skilled-workers do. The system doesn't cut off the meat but debone with dismantling so the meat is free from the damages caused by knife. Since human hands don't touch the meat, the problem of sanitation and security is highly improved. HAMDAS-R will contribute yield ration improvement and man-power saving.
Japan Machinery Federation President Award was awarded to the Medication Picking Robot System developed by Panasonic Healthcare Corporation.
Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises Chairman Award was awardet to Expliner high pressure transmission lines inspection robot developed by HiBot Inc.
Hisashi Tate Award Miraikan was awarded to "Kibo" Robotic Arm developed by Agency Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NEC Corporation (NEC).
Service robot sector "Excellence Award" was awarded to humanoid robot HRP-4C developed by National Institute of AIST
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| Courtesy AIST: HRP-4C |
HRP-4C was efficiently developed based on the User Centered Robot Open Architecture utilizing the fundamental robot technologies (RTs) including real-time Linux, RT middleware, robot simulator OpenHRP3, speech recognition and bipedal walking technology which have been studied and developed at AIST .
HRP-4C is expected to be useful in the entertainment industry, for device evaluation for humans working as human simulators, and mechanical products to assist human movements.
Service robot sector "Excellence Award" was also awarded to the strawberry harvesting robot developed by Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution (BRAIN) and Esuai Seiko Co., Ltd, and to and joystick driving system developed by National University Corporation Tokyo University of Agriculture and Automotive Industry Co., Ltd. Nissin.
Industrial Robots division "Excellence Award" was awarded to M-1iA light weight and compact high speed assembly robot series developed by FANUC Robot.
Public sector Frontier "Excellence Award" was awarded to FRIGO-M fire-fighting reconnaissance robot developed by Special Equipment Systems Co., Mitsubishi denki and Fire Academy and Fire Research Ministry.
Component Software Division "Excellence Award" was awarded to Module D3 service robot communication kit developed by D3 Technology Co., Ltd.
Robot Award of the Year Winners 2006-2010 (click image to enlarge)
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| Infonaut/GRB - Robot Award of the Year Winners 2006-2010 |
