#22 Avatar Technology Digest / Motorcycle-riding humanoid robot / Biomimetic worm-bot
Welcome to Avatar Technology Digest! The latest news on Medical Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics… Here are the top stories we of the last week we carefully picked for you. This time primarily on robotics. Robotic vehicles aren’t really new. We count on machines for our anto-lock brakes, cruise control and much more. What if the machines turn into fully functional humanoids? Stay with us.
1) Yamaha produced somewhat of a surprise at the Tokyo Motor Show today when it showed a motorcycle-riding humanoid robot. Yamaha has taken a distinct approach, building a human-like robot that sits on a motorcycle and rides it. The self-driving aspects aren’t baked into the traditional vehicle form, they’re actually taking the seat of a human passenger. Unlike most two-wheeled debutants, Yamaha's new Motobot isn't starting out on a small capacity motorcycle, but release images show the humanoid robot riding Yamaha's most sporting motorcycle, the 1000cc R1M.
2) With people spending an average of 4 years of our lives in our cars (which equates to traveling to the moon and back three times) Toyota believes that much can be learnt about our behavior and emotion while driving. And that’s where Kirobo Mini Robot could help. Kirobo Mini is a communication companion robot from Toyota that appeared at the Tokyo Motor Show; it is engineered to make the driver have a better emotional experience when behind the wheel.
3) It doesn’t seem like the most exciting form factor for a robot would be a cube, but recently, cube robots have been where it’s at. Balancing cubes, jumping hedgehog cubes, even self-assembling cubes: somehow, cubes can do it all. And if you give them springy metal tongues with which they can elastically lick surfaces like MIT did for some reason, they can jump, bounce, and roll.
4) Consider the earthworm. Ubiquitous, not unfriendly, maybe a little gross–who would think that this humble creature may hold the key to a new generation of soft robots? At the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting in Chicago last week, a team of neuroscientists and engineers from Case Western Reserve were on hand to describe their work turning biological research on earthworm behavior into useful robotics.
5) A study by engineers at Oregon State University suggests that they have achieved the most realistic robotic implementation of human walking dynamics that has ever been done, which may ultimately allow human-like versatility and performance.
TV Anchor: Olesya Yermakova @olesyayermakova
Hair&Make-up: Alena Leontieva @leona_mua
Video: Vladimir Shlykov www.GetYourMedia.ru