Factory of the Future

Japanese Kawada Industries demonstrated in 2009 their idea of future factory workers that with their versatile arms and precise movements can cooperate with each other and humans. The upper body humanoid robots are equipped with special sensors that allow it to remain mindful of humans in its vicinity, particularly in a production line environment.


The upper body humanoid robots are based on the HIRO platform developed by Kawada Industries, Inc. with its background and know-how gained from lease and maintenance business with biped humanoid robot, HRP-2 “Promet.” By keeping the price low - about US$ 65.000 for basic version - Kawada released HIRO as an upper body humanoid robot platform that enables users to carry out practical robotics research activities. HIRO enables its users to develop important technologies for next generation robotics including safety devices, image processing, voice recognition/synthesis, and work in real human environments. By incorporating an environment recognition device, for instance, an exterior camera, HIRO becomes a suitable research tool to developing future generation robotics systems.

Japanese Humanoid Update

Kawada Industries and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have updated their 10-year-old line of HRP humanoid robots with an athletic machine they hope to develop into a menial worker. The blue and white humanoid -- named HRP-4 -- stands 1.51 meters (5 ft) tall and it weights  39 kg, 4 kg less than last year's entertainment-oriented HRP-4C fembot. Kawada and AIST plan to begin selling the robots to universities and research institutions in January 2011 at a starting price of 26 million yen ($305,000) each.
[Sources: Nikkei, AIST] via pinktentacle]