Robot plays violin with human-like dexterity
December 14th, 2007
Toyota Motor Corp. this week unveiled a pair of robots aimed at supporting people in their “everyday life,” including a violin-playing model claimed to achieve “human-like dexterity.” Toyota describes the violin-playing robot as an “easy to become familiar with bipedal robot, capable of performing a variety of tasks with its hands and arms.”
The humanoid robot (Click for larger view) has 17 joints in each of its hands and arms, and stands about 59 inches tall and weighs 123 pounds — about the size of a lanky adolescent.
Toyota boasts that this flexible and talented robot achieves “dexterous, human-like hand movement and arm strength when playing the violin,” and plays the violin with a vibrato “similar to that created by humans.”
The mobility robot, meanwhile, offers autonomous movement over uneven ground and around obstacles, and provides transport in places where people usually walk.
According to the company, the stout robot stands about 39 inches tall and weighs a hefty 330 pounds. It can negotiate steps with independent vertical movement of its left and right wheels, allowing it to assist in short-distance personal mobility, the company says.
Other key features are said to include:
- Range of up to 20km on one hour of battery charge
- Speed of up to 6 km per hour
- Can move on a 10-degree gradient
- Can follow a person, “allowing it to function as a porter”
- Can avoid obstacles, in order to reach and autonomously transport its owner
Demo of both robots — click to play
The bots are part of the Toyota Partner Robots initiative, which is intended to produce products that can assist people with domestic duties; nursing and medical care; manufacturing; short-distance personal transport. “To this end, [Toyota's] primary developmental focuses are on technology that works in harmony with people — such as that for assistance devices that can help move heavy instruments in a factory, on mobility technology for autonomous movement, on full-body coordination for walking and jumping and on tool manipulation,” the company said in a statement.
Toyota added that it “aims to realize practical use of Toyota Partner Robots in the early 2010s by furthering its robotic development and strengthening collaboration among industry, government and academia.”
