YO ROBOT explores all kinds of robots, from the untamed, powerful Boston Dynamics robots to the cute and personable ones like NAO. It will also cover androids, like the one that Ishiguro built as a copy of himself. Each article will cover only one robot and hopefully will provide you with something new you didn't know. The focus of this publication will be to introduce people to the world of robots. Links to technical details are provided, but these articles are not too technical in nature. They are written in such a way that anyone will be able to understand. If robots are destined to become our new overlords, we might as well get to know them.
Asimo is considered to be among the most advanced humanoid robots in existence. Asimo is a child-sized humanoid robot created by Honda in Japan. It took over 20 years to develop and fine-tune this intelligent robot. Asimo is an acronym which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility. Asimo was introduced in 2000 and has undergone technological innovations throughout the years. Each new version of Asimo introduces new features, making advancements in motion, artificial intelligence and human-like capabilities. The last Asimo upgrade was in 2011 which was ground-breaking because Asimo is now considered to be an autonomous robot. This means that Asimo is able to make decisions on its own instead of relying on directions from a human controller. Asimo’s development has been compared to a human child’s because with each new version, brand new skills are added.
The team at Honda created Asimo to be a multi-functional, intelligent mobile assistant. They state, “Honda wants to create a partner for people, a new kind of robot that functions in society.” Everything about Asimo is designed with human comfort in the real world in mind. The core philosophy which guides Asimo’s engineers is the belief that robots should be useful assistants to human beings.
When Asimo walks in a hallway, it changes direction to avoid colliding with humans. Asimo is able to do this because of the presence of predictive motion programming. Asimo is also an artificially intelligent robot who can listen, understand and speak to humans. It can walk, run, hop on one leg, go up and down stairs, kick a ball, take drink orders, respond when its name is called, access information on the internet, fetch and serve tea, dance, push a cart, recognize different faces, understand/speak English, Japanese and sign language, bow, shake hands and interact autonomously.
The autonomous ability is quite impressive because this means that Asimo can stop and start various activities in reaction to the human beings around it. Asimo did not start out as an autonomous robot, as it was only in 2011 that the autonomous ability was added. Regarding Asimo’s ability to shake hands, this is accomplished because Asimo has fine-tuned sensors on its hands which control how much pressure is applied, depending on the object and situation. This is why Asimo can pick up an empty paper cup and not crush it. Most robots cannot pick up empty and full paper cups because they haven’t been designed to recognize the differences in pressure and materials.
Asimo returns to its charging station when it senses its low battery charge. Asimo is equipped with a lithium ion battery that lasts one hour if Asimo is in continuous motion.
Asimo’s engineers foresee the future of Asimo to be one that helps humans in these possible scenarios: assisting elderly and disabled people, going into dangerous environments and fighting fires or cleaning up toxic waste.
Many Asimo robot prototypes were built that tackled the technological and engineering hurdles starting in 1986 with EO and ending about 1997 with P3. Read the full technical details of Asimo here: http://asimo.honda.com/downloads/pdf/asimo-technical-information.pdf
If you’d like to download Asimo wallpapers or screensavers, click here.
Download the Asimo papercraft model and build your very own paper Asimo.
Here’s a video overview of Asimo and some other robots that will soon be featured in YO ROBOT:
