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Robotics Science

Honda Updates ASIMO 232

Posted by samzenpus from the finally-chasing-speed dept.
kosmicki writes "Honda Motor Co. today announced the development of new technologies for the next-generation ASIMO humanoid robot, targeting a new level of mobility that will better enable ASIMO to function and interact with people by quickly processing information and acting more nimbly in real-world environments."
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Honda Updates ASIMO More

Honda Updates ASIMO

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  • Homework? (Score:3, Funny)

    by tyman ( 831421 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @10:59PM (#11100469) Homepage
    Can it to my homework and clean my room for me yet?

  • more realistic... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by marshall_j ( 643520 )
    sensors in the wrists to give people objects seems a bit like cheeting.

    if they want to make it seem more 'human' then get it to track the person it's interacting withs face with its head. that would up the realism heaps.
    • Force feedback sensors in the wrists aren't cheeting (sic) at all. I'd like to see you negotiate the task of handing someone an object or shaking hands without the ability to distinguish forces acting upon your wrist...
    • ASIMO isn't intended to be any kind of artificially intelligent robot. He's intended to be a demonstration of the motor skills that Honda can put in a robot. He's intended as a research demonstration of human-like motion, walking, running, etc.

      And that's enough work for Honda anyway. ASIMO is quite impressive if you've ever seen him. Someone else can continue to develop the artificial intelligence algorithms while they do this. This is what they are good at.
      -N

  • Imaging a beowulf cluster of Asimov! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    that's all I've got...

  • I could use these too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cmeans ( 81143 ) * <[chris.a.means] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @10:59PM (#11100479) Journal
    From the article:

    Key technologies include:
    1) "Posture Control" technology* making it possible to run in a natural human-like way
    2) "Autonomous Continuous Movement" technology enabling flexible route to destination
    3) Enhanced visual and force sensor technologies enabling smoother interaction with people

    These are all things I need too...maybe I can get an upgrade.

  • Time for a Butlerian Jihad (Score:3, Funny)

    by michaeldot ( 751590 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @10:59PM (#11100480)
    I don't know about you, but I for one do NOT welcome our humanoid robotic 3 kph overlords.

  • Anyone... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by JavaMoose ( 832619 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:00PM (#11100484)
    Anyone in the Robotics/Automation industry, I have a question.

    Does the ASIMO actually advance the field of robotics? Does it come out with revolutionary advances, or just build on those of others?

    I don't mean to take anything away from the ASIMO, it's pretty slick, but is it a beacon or a distraction for "real" robotics?

    • It looks almost like you are saying ASIMO is not a true innovation. And that you are trying to say ASIMO is just a packaging of existing innovations.

    • It's certainly an impressive piece of technology, but it's definitely not the pinnaclce of robotics. It's newsworthy primarily because it's in humanoid form, and if there's anything I've learned from 1950's sci-fi, it's that everyone wants their own little robot butler.

      ASIMO is, at most, a PR move. "Look! We can build an incredible robot! Imagine how great our automobiles must be!"

      • Re:Anyone... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dubious9 ( 580994 ) * on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:51PM (#11100803) Journal
        It's newsworthy primarily because it's in humanoid form

        As I replied below [slashdot.org], replicating human form and movement is a tremendously difficult engineering task. A PR move? I don't think so. I believe I've heard that honda is planning to move human-like robots into their factories to revolutionize efficiency. General purpose robots that can move like humans and react intellegently to narrow tasks could drive down manufacturing costs through the floor.

        Plus they are doing world-leading research on the advancement of human-like movement. Sorry if I sound like a fanboy, but they've put little advertizing dollars into it for it to be a PR move. However, they've spent billions developing it. They sure expect that investment to pay off down the line. I'm not sure I blame them.
        • "but they've put little advertizing dollars into it for it to be a PR move."

          Anybody in the advertising/PR industry is going "well duh!" right now. Allow me to explain. PR consists of non-advertising communications. Typically free things, like press releases etc. You don't "spend money" on it like you would for advertising, although you still pay for the services of a PR firm you might use.

          Which is why PR is so valuable, its free word of mouth.

          But you make good points about their ultimate plans with the

    • I think Honda and the Japanese in general are making great strides with robotics.

      ASIMO in particular may be more of a way to show off than the breeding itself, but I don't think this is just a case of Honda stealing everyone elses tech and packaging it.

      If any other single entity was capable of making a robot as polished as ASIMO we'd be seeing it. And we're not.

      • Err, make that "than the breeding ground itself"...

      • I'm not sure about the answer to your question, but I would say even if it is putting lots of technologies together, its still difficult to do. I"m sure its as hard as getting all the parts of a complex computer program to work together when they were developed separately. Look at all the problems we see with OS's when soemthing new is added.

        But from what I have read, it seems a lot of hte advances are home grown for ASIMO.
      • If any other single entity was capable of making a robot as polished as ASIMO we'd be seeing it. And we're not.

        You mean like Sony's QRIO [sony.net]? It's a significantly smaller robot, but I can't think of a single thing ASIMO does which it doesn't do, and several things ASIMO can't do that QRIO can.

    • Re:Anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:22PM (#11100622)
      I'm someone in the robotics field, and yes it does, the same way everything in all research fields improves: gradually.

      ASIMO provides a solid platform for researching humanoid motion control, mechanisms for humanoid robots, human-robot interaction, and robot-environment interaction. The researchers who work on it make advances in all these areas, just like the researchers who work on the Qrio, or any other robotic platform make advances in their areas.

      Being a handy marketing tool is merely a side benefit of developing all these technologies that will be extremely useful in the future when Honda wants to be a big player in the robotics industry. It's called "thinking longterm."

    • Re:Anyone... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dubious9 ( 580994 ) *
      As I gathered from a discovery channel program about robots, ASIMO is revolutionary in it's advanced bipedal movement. Walking on two legs [wikipedia.org] is an extremely difficult problem to engineer, and it took Honda billions of dollars to develop a robot that could do it.

      It might not have been the first, but it sure is state of the art, and helps in advancing human-like automotons. IIRC it was the first robot that could walk like a human and climb stairs, but somebody correct me if I'm wrong. Therefore, as far a

    • Re:Anyone... (Score:3, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      Here's some related research papers:

      http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=asimo [google.com]

  • Still with the helmet? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheShadowHawk ( 789754 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:01PM (#11100490) Homepage
    Looks like they are slowly getting better..

    Should be interesting once the robots start looking like Robin Williams [imdb.com] or (gasp!) Haley Joel Osment [imdb.com].

    Hmm..

  • Videos (Score:5, Informative)

    by r_glen ( 679664 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:01PM (#11100493)
    You can see videos of Asimo in action (including his new "tricks") at the Honda [honda.com] site.

    • Re:Videos (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Scrameustache ( 459504 )
      videos of Asimo

      You deserve your +5 informative, but you could have warned us that they were streams. I started about 6 of 'em in tabs before I realised what I had done.

      And off course, everytime the robot starts doing something interresting the video stream craps out for 2 seconds. It sure SOUNDS like he's doing something neat.

      Man I hate streaming, why do people do this? Hate, is it hate of mankind? Some kind of irrational need to let people know there's something cool to see, but not actually letting th
      • In the drop down menu next to preview, select "Plain Text"
      • Those fuckers deserve to die, that's true. However, you need not to despair - there is hope. NetTransport and the like work greatly for streaming WMV, MOV, RM, etc. And even this FLV (Flash Video) abomination that Honda uses can be defeated. Download URL Helper [recordstreaming.com] (serial [mobilz.ru]) to monitor what URLs are requested by the browser (AtGuard! firewall also works, other programs may have this functionality too). Open the flash in the browser. Check out the link to the flv file. Download it. Now download the FLV Local Play [swftools.com]
    • You can also see some cool videos of Sony's similar QRIO robot on their website [sony.net] (warning - RealPlayer format only). QRIO is smaller and more nimble, making 'him' arguably more interesting to watch. Nothing against ASIMO of course!
  • Please correct me if I am wrong, but...

    I was under the impression that Asimo is remote-controlled. I suppose it is a pretty slick remote-controlled toy, but I think a large part of the Asimo scheme is just conning the world into believing they have something really amazing: AI that advanced.

    • The videos suggest that it is autonomous, as in one of them it doesn't respond the first time, and sometimes it seems a bit sluggish in comprehending.

      If they were faking it, I feel they would do a better job.

    • I saw ASIMO "in person": it's semi-autonomous (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nomihn0 ( 739701 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:36PM (#11100699)
      The routine was preprogrammed and triggered remotely from backstage over a broadband wireless connection. Everything was scripted - the floor was plastered in tape to help the human actors perform correctly. A few of the markers were triggers for ASIMO to orient itself with before demonstrating an action. It was explained to the crowd that some half-dozen technicians were working backstage, keeping the thing going the whole time.

      Now, many of the feats (climbing stairs, walking across a see saw, walking in circles, bracing for a fall) were calculated on the fly by ASIMO. You have to give Honda credit for succeeding in that, but overall ASIMO is just an overblown animatronic puppet.

      At least half a year ago, I saw a video of ASIMO jogging. Although the jogging was a joke as a mode of locomotion, it was an interesting demonstration of balance. My question is, how much has ASIMO changed since then? The video of the new ASIMO running looks suspiciously similar to the old one. I have the feeling that this "next-generation" ASIMO is far more capable than these new video demonstrations convey.
      • Asimo is semi-autonimous, but not because it's got an _optional_ remote control. Asimo has to be 'ordered' or 'programmed' to perform tasks, like any robot butler would... it's not an 'artifical thinking machine' if you tell it to 'go wash the car' it can only perform that taks if it understands what you mean by 'car' where the car 'is' and what you mean by 'wash' They could easily program asimo to work on purely voice commands or hand gestures, but the remote control is for convenience and to make the
        • I never said that ASIMO exhibited artificially intelligent behavior. The system of remote control, as I described it in the parent post, consists of a prewritten macro. The act is monitored by a team of technicians. Steps are triggered by both active (button push) and passive (detection of object in FOV, physical contact,etc. ) stimuli. The distinction that should be made is that all of the processing is done by ASIMO. Also, there are subroutines running the entire time that keep ASIMO balanced in spit
      • Who gave mod points to the guys with munchies?
    • Asimo's been in the works for a while. It's been autonomous since the P3 (not pentium) in 1993.

      Check out their history [honda.com].
  • where and how do I get one?
  • I've got a dishwasher. Maybe it's old or something but it really doesn't get the dishes 50% as clean as when I do the washing up myself (and my g/f says I don't do it 25% as well as she does).. but we still use it, cause if you've got a dishwasher who wants to do dishes? Now stacking the dishwasher, that's a freakin' chore. You can't just put the dishes into the dishwasher as you make them either, cause you're only ever get four or five dishes into there before you run out of space. It's a bin packing p
    • This may be totally off topic but one thing which helps get your dishes sqeaky clean is rinsing them properly (and brushing off the stuff which won't go with a rinse) before putting stuff in the dishwasher.

      I know of no dishwashers except industrial ones which don't have problems with food which has dried stuck to a plate. A simple rinse can make a world of difference.
    • All I'll say is that I didn't come onto Slashdot to read about dishwashing and vacuuming!

      Jeez, you've become more wussified than Solo post-Greedo.

      I just hope more geeks stay celibate if THAT'S what getting a girlfriend means!

      PS :)

  • Honda vs Sony (Score:3, Informative)

    by IANAAC ( 692242 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:13PM (#11100561)
    I recently saw a demo of Sony's Qrio dream robot. I haven't seen Honda's demo, other than the videos on their web page, but Sony's seems to be a bit more intuitive with movements and interaction, particularly head movement. And it jumps and throws too.

    Overall, it just seems a bit smoother.

    • Qrio is just a step up from Aibo, though...I've actually worked with AIBO (development for my senior yr CS project - all the APIs are written in C++!). It was pretty decent. I think Sony and Honda are approaching the issue from different angles though - if you check out Honda's site, you'll see that they've been working on 'walking' bots for while now, where as Sony kind of started out with other stuff..

  • nice and smooth! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mm0mm ( 687212 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:14PM (#11100565)
    movement of new asimo looks very fluid. check out him running [honda.com] and chasing a Japanese chick [honda.com]. it is incredible. this made me wonder if someone would begin using robots in the medical field in the next decade or so.

  • ASIMO (Score:2, Interesting)

    by F13 ( 9091 )
    in case anyone was wondering is, Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility
    see here [acronymfinder.com] although It may just be a name now.

    There is also a time line for ASIMO at Honda.co.jp(japanese) but you can see a graphical history of it here [honda.co.jp]

  • Government sponsered, privately built (Score:4, Informative)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Wednesday December 15, 2004 @11:19PM (#11100603) Homepage Journal
    Japan has a government sponsored humanoid robot devellopment project. And it seems that rivalry between the major corporation also fuels the R&D.

    Honda's Asimo is the best of the bunch, but Sony has a doll sized little "entertainment" robot, and Toyota has a trumpet playing robot, not to mention all the universities working on various robotic sub-projects, like facial expression and whatnot (I thought disney's animatronics had the expressiveness thing figured out, maybe my memory has embelished them somewhat).

    Asimov expected the U.S. to be the leader in humanoid robots, he couldn't have foreseen this shift in technological leadership, but at least Honda named their creation after him : )
  • What I want to know is how it compares to the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000 robot? [tvtome.com] For example, how many Adam Sandler movies can it conceive?

    For those unfamiler with the A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000, a picture of it undergoing stress testing by the U.S. military can be found here [southparkstudios.com].

  • Episode 804
    Butters: Woah what a Huge package!
    Butters: Ko-ni-chi-wa
    Butters: To Butters Stotch! Oh boy it's for me-it's for me!
    Butters: Who is it from? Sent from japan. WOW! A Package for me FROM JAPAN!
    Butters: What could it be? My birthday's not till September Eleventh!
    Butters: Oh boy, I've never had a package this big!
    Butters: I've always wanted to have a huge package!
    *SLAM*
    *Robot Noises+Blinky Lights*
    Cartman: Greetings. I am the awesomo 4000.
    --Highpoints:
    Carman: LAME!
    --
    Carman: Weak.
    --
    Carman: LAME!

    Kar

  • I think what most slashdotters want to know is (Score:3, Funny)

    by xRelisH ( 647464 ) on Thursday December 16, 2004 @12:35AM (#11101049)
    when there will be a "female" version, and what new "tricks" it will be able to do.
  • The step cycle of ASIMO is 0.36 seconds with an airborne time of 0.05 seconds, which are equivalent to that of a person jogging.

    It can already catch a sprinting slashdotter!?
  • I am fasinated by Honda's commitment to bring this technology to it's logic end without any potential for a profit in the near future. I am more fasinated with Honda's project than I am with anything that NASA is doing here in the USA. I think our president has lost touch with what makes Americans hearts and minds swoon and what they envision as necessary technologies to progress into the future. Honda has that vision. Honda has my attention. I wish that our country had something as wonderful as ASIMO
  • I noticed that, when jogging, the ASIMO lifts its arms up in a manner similar to what humans will do when hustling. Does anyone know if this was purely aesthetic, or if it served some purpose?
  • Just f---ing great. I finally get up the gumption to start jogging and losing some of this computer ass of mine, and Honda invents a f---ing robot that can jog -- as fast, if not faster, than me.

    This is bigger than advancing movement technologies.

    When thousands of ASIMOs at the Honda plant f---ing become sentient and decide to take over the world, poke-ass "joggers" like me are going to die. We won't be able to get away from them.

    Damn you, Honda. Damn you. Where do I sign up to be a human battery?

    Ir
  • It's starting to look pretty realistic, in the way it walks and moves. They should put clothes on it, and a hat and some dark sun glasses. Then it would really freek people out.

    • I've always thought ASIMO looked kind of funny when it tried to walk quickly (or jog, with the new model).

      Then I started thinking about a black and white Japanese movie I saw a 3am a while back. The courtesians ran with the same tiny mincing gait.

      So I'm curious if ASIMO's walking/jogging style is a design limitation, or are they trying for that particular style of movement?

  • This would be a great project for HW hackers, if they could open source the HW or if it could be retrofitted with an off the shelf MIPS or power PC controller PC. Using this as the platform for an open source robotics project would really advance the state of the art in this field. Grad students could experiment with all sorts of advanced goal seeking and pattern recognition algorithms, and contribute them to the back to the project. In a short time with enough experts contributing, I expect we could hav

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