This year’s iREX exhibition in Japan has many of the devices we all have become used to from science fiction.
From humanoid-like robots that quickly convert into cars, to four-legged devices that roll over and sit.
Watch this humanoid robot.
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Video credit: Rumble
Amid all these, there was one thing that caught everyone’s attention and it was robots that will help humans bridge the pathway to a “friendlier society.”
The iREX, or International Robot Exhibition, is held in Japan and it involves everything robotic. One of Japan’s biggest publishers, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun and the Japan Robot Association put on this exhibition.
There is a robot ready for play at the “Omron” robotics company’s booth. “Forpheus” is a large, ping pong-playing robot designed to demonstrate what its manufacturers call the future of “integration between people and machines”.
It detects the movements of the human player, their paddle, and the ping pong ball simultaneously as it is equipped with state-of-the-art sensing equipment. The robot does it all at a high speed with a high degree of accuracy.
“This robot’s specialty is that while it’s rallying with a player, it’s able to use AI (Artificial Intelligence) and sensing to determine the player’s skill level, or what they may want to work on,” explains Satoshi Yase, an Omron Corporation engineer.
“In the case of human-machine interaction, I think we can really expand on the development of how robots sense the condition of the player, and how we can receive feedback when it’s playing against someone.”
The company is showing “Kaleido”, a humanoid robot this year and it is standing 184 centimeters tall and weighing 85 kilograms, which is built to travel to places humans can not.
According to Associate Officer Toshiya Okuma, ‘’the robot is in its 6th generation, with the 4th iteration having been displayed at iREX in 2017.’’
“This robot is made to be used anywhere that may be dangerous for a human to go. For example, if there’s a tsunami or some kind of natural disaster, or a fire. Looking further ahead, it could be used in space or in deep-sea exploration. It can go anywhere in place of a human,” he explains.
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