Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair

[WickedDeus]

Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair

17:00 13 October 03

NewScientist.com news service



Humanoid robots capable of performing somersaults and complex martial arts moves were demonstrated at Asia's largest electronics and computing fair in Tokyo on Saturday.

Visitors to CEATEC 2003 (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) met Morph3, a human-like robot about 30-centimetres tall developed by researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. It can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.

Another miniature humanoid robot on display was Fujitsu's HOAP-2. This droid has been programmed to perform moves from the Chinese martial art taijiquan, as well as Japanese Sumo wrestling stances.

HOAP-2 is designed as an aid to robotics research and therefore runs on open source, Linux-based software. Fujitsu believes it will sell between 20 and 30 of the robots to universities and companies in 2004.

But impressive as these high-kicking robots are, Frederic Kaplan, at Sony's robotics laboratory in France, says making more agile robots is not the biggest challenge facing robotics researchers at the moment.

"There are challenges in terms of mechanics still, but the biggest gap would be in intelligence," he told New Scientist. "One of the key things we are looking at now is developmental robotics, where a robot learns."

Video: http://www.automation.fujitsu.com/pr...oducts092.html