ASIMO The Future Robotic Technology
Everyone knows about ASIMO. He’s Honda Robotic’s adorable bipedal robot that can balance all by himself. What you probably didn’t realise is that the ASIMO we’ve all come to love isn’t the first of his kind. In fact he’s closer to number 100 of his kind.
The first of Honda’s robots, EO, was produced in 1986 and now twenty-five years on Honda are unveiling their latest and potentially greatest creation. This one has something quite special over its predecessors too – it can act autonomously!
Weighing in at 106 pounds, the new ASIMO is almost a stone lighter than Honda’s last incarnation. The new model is capable of 57 degrees of freedom, which is almost twice as many as its previous 34 degrees and it’s faster too, with the ability to run at 5.6mph instead of 3.7mph.
Packed full of sensors that emulate human senses like sight, hearing and touch, this new ASIMO is aware of its surroundings; so much so that it can change its behaviour and react organically to events that unfold in front of its robotic eyes.
ASIMO can even anticipate the actions of those around it, and has the ability to change its route if it anticipates someone getting in its way.
This is cool, but is nothing compared to its ability to connect faces with voices and pick them out of a noisy crowd. It’s handy too, and can unscrew bottle-tops, pour drinks and even communicate via sign-language.
This new ASIMO is leagues ahead of its predecessor, indicating a bright future ahead for autonomous robots.
It would be interesting to see a version of ASIMO using the Mask-bot human face which we covered a few days ago. The projector system would need to be a little more compact. support by V-Soft System
