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What's new in my robots pages?
Wednesday, apr. 6th, 2005 :
Updated the Toys page with pictures and details for a few new toys.
Sunday, feb. 6th, 2005 :
Updated the Fujitsu, Nec and Promet pages with pictures, text and a video.
Wednesday, sept. 8th, 2004 : BN-1
Added a Bandai BN-1 page to my real robots collection. Also updated the Wonderborg page a bit.
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This feature will soon be available
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Fujitsu Robots |
This page is under construction....
Fujitsu's contribution to the Humanoid Robots research is name "HOAP" for Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform. It consists of a small sized (approx 50 cm high) biped platform designed as a research tool for roboticists. The first version of the HOAP robot, the HOAP-1 was presented in 2001 (right).
An evolved version, logically dubbed HOAP-2 (below) was released in 2003. With 2 additionnal centimeters in high for a total height of 50 centimeters, the most obvious differences include a pair of actuator-driven hands and a different design. Less obvious improvements include more degrees of freedom (25) and more power.
It seems that neither models are autonomous, both requiring an USB connection to an external PC to receive commands and send sensors informations. Maybe the robot can be programmed using this USB cable, but i am not sure whether the robot sports an embedded battery or requires an external power supply.
I've attended an HOAP exhibition in Paris in 2002; and the robot on stage was actually wired to a portable PC; and maybe a power supply.
As an open development platform, the HOAP robots run a Linux OS.
FUJITSU MARRON-1
Exploring the domestic robot R&D area, Fujitsu came up with the "MARRON-1" platform.
I'm not quite sure what those devices are up to, except that they should be able to command most IR controlled domestic appliance and that they run on wheels.
I'm quite confused with this whole domestic robots thing. It seems to me that the best thing manufacturers could present is some voice-operated remote control on wheels. As the market for domestic robots is mostly defined as a response to the problem of aging population in Japan, a lot of machines also offer health monitoring functions.
Altough i'm interested in robots, and despite the fact that i actually do somehow see something interesting possibly coming out of this all (i mean, all those serious companies spending so much money on such projects cannot just be all of them going awfully wrong at the same time?), i must confess that i do not understand why a convenient remote control/health monitor should have wheels/legs and be as power-hungry as current robots are. I feel like some kind of smart system smoothly integrated in the house could do the same job for a fraction of the price and using cost.
Anyway, back to our business : the picture here presents a robot in the middle and just a part of another one on the left. The left one has a sticker "Mar-kun" on it and the frontmost one has a "Ron-kun" sticker. "Kun" being a sweet tag used after someone's name to nickname little kids or close (young) relatives, "Mar" and "Ron" are thus the name of the two robots, both forming the "Marron" platform. Why are there two machines is out of my knowledge...
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