the cyborg mystery | robosapiens | ASIMO | repliee

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ASIMO: wonderful electric

On February 20th 2004, a year to the day since his first visit to MIT's robot lab, Richard caught up with the world's most famous robot - Honda's ASIMO.

In 1986, the Japanese government initiated an ambitious national programme entitled 'the Humanoid Robot Project', it was a bold vision that foresaw a world where autonomous human-like partner robots worked alongside people in everyday situations, in their homes, offices and factories. The Honda Motor Company, a corporation better known for making cars and motorcycles, took part in the project and secretly began working to create a primitive two-legged walking robot called E0. E0 didn't have a body and was just a pair of legs that struggled to place one foot in front of the other. Eighteen long years later however, and E0 had evolved into something far more advanced…

London, February 2004 - it is bitterly cold and England's capital is filled with a cosmopolitan cross section of the world's people, drawn here by the city's powerful magnetism. At the Science Museum in South Kensington, there is another, altogether stranger, visitor to this town, a visitor that exerts its own special kind of attraction. Honda's successor to E0, the ASIMO humanoid robot is in London for one week only, appearing at a series of short daily shows set up to demonstrate the company's technological prowess. Looking round at the crowds desperate for tickets to these sold-out events, the scene is reminiscent of accounts from the 19th Century, when elaborate clockwork automata were brought to the arcades and institutions of Victorian London to amaze the curious with their apparent sentience and lifelike actions. ASIMO (for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility) is the first in a wave of humanoid robots developed by Japanese corporations including Toyota, Sony, Fujitsu, Kawasaki, NEC - all determined to prove not only that our fascination with living machines is perhaps greater than ever before but also that in years to come, personal robots are going to become as ubiquitous as computers and mobile phones are now.

As soon as ASIMO makes its appearance in the Lecture Theatre, the audience is in awe of this 120cm tall, white-bodied robot - the device is, quite simply, breathtaking. Powered by nickel-zinc batteries in its backpack, ASIMO walks, dances, waves, ascends stairs and traverses uneven surfaces like it is second nature - and though these actions are simple enough for humans, for roboticists, these are major achievements. The manner in which ASIMO accomplishes its tasks is impressive too - for each action is completed smoothly, without the jerky, typically mechanical movements one has grown to expect from years of scary sci-fi robots. And whilst ASIMO is clearly a machine, its makers have given it many human nuances in its movements and design, figuring rightly that we will warm to a child-sized machine that behaves in a way that is familiar to us.

William De Braekeleer, of Honda Europe, commented that "wherever ASIMO has appeared, from England to Italy to Spain, the reaction has been universally positive. At a demonstration in Italy, a young boy in the audience jumped up spontaneously and ran to give ASIMO a present. Children are more naturally enthusiastic and expressive than adults," he continues, "while adults seemed amazed at the technology behind the robot, children were just thrilled to see something that walked like them."

De Braekeleer added that while people were impressed with P3, ASIMO's immediate predecessor, they didn't respond as warmly as they do to ASIMO - Honda admit they don't know why this is and have yet to conduct any research on the issue. De Braekeleer speculated that "it may be down to ASIMO's size, its appearance, or the fact that it's the first robot with intelligent walking technology - the fact it walks just like we do."

Perhaps seeing something that moves in such a familiar way contributes to the 'positive emotion' that the robot engenders among those who encounter it. Developers of humanoid robots have worked extremely hard to steer well clear of what Japanese robotics researcher Dr Masahiro Mori called 'the uncanny valley' - put simply, Mori calculated that 'we react negatively to something that is almost human, but not human enough'. Far better to build a friendly-looking robot than an android (a robot with a human appearance) with inexpressive eyes and artificial skin that might unsettle valuable potential customers.

At the Science Museum though, the audience reaction to ASIMO was uniformly positive - children, women and men were all equally fascinated and enthusiastic as ASIMO walked, waved and danced before them. The robot had a kind of 'stage presence' - at one point in its routine, it started to clap and the auditorium instinctively followed suit, an effect researchers into sociable robotics will be encouraged by, as it shows that when robots act in a human-like way, we respond almost instinctively to familiar, non-verbal queues. This writer had a place at the front of the theatre and there was another moment when ASIMO appeared to look right at me and nod - although I knew that it's large round eyes couldn't really 'see' me and that the action was merely part of a pre-programmed routine, it was nevertheless compelling to have the machine appear to show acknowledgement in such a manner.

Honda aren't stopping here of course - right now, ASIMO is remotely controlled but a new, autonomous version of ASIMO is being developed in Japan, able to recognise faces, phrases and objects, with further enhancements to what its makers call its 'movement intelligence', including knowing when it needs to avoid an object and when it needs to respond positively to friendly gestures like a handshake. Other new facilities are face and voice recognition, gesture and posture recognition and a handy message delivery system. As De Braekeleer put it, 'if you have a message for Mr Jones, you tell the robot and then, the next time it sees Mr Jones, it will relay the message to him'. Honda's long-term aim is to create a humanoid robot that is beneficial to mankind and De Braekeleer outlined their vision for the next 15-20 years - to develop ASIMO into an intelligent, fully autonomous, partner robot. He stresses that "it will take at least 15 years to get the job done properly, to have ASIMO ready for sale on the open market". One of many key issues to address is ASIMO's battery life - currently only thirty minutes - to solve this, Honda are looking into some novel technologies, one of which is a hydrogen fuel cell. They also want to increase the machine's mobility and agility, especially for its hands, and the range of its artificial intelligence. De Braekeleer gave the example of trying to get ASIMO to pour liquid from a bottle into a glass, "firstly, the robot needs to understand that it can hold the bottle more forcefully than the glass and then it needs to know that the job is to pour from the bottle into the glass and not the other way around! We need to get ASIMO to understand the consequences of its actions".

Another area of concern is safety. Honda stress that robots aren't inherently dangerous, that's down to the intentions of their human operators, but they are making strenuous efforts to make their automata safe to operate around people. The latest version currently being developed in Japan has the ability to stop its movement if it senses a person in its way. De Braekeleer explains 'when called, ASIMO will come over to you and stop 1.5 m away or, if that's too close, you can just raise your hand and it will stop wherever you indicate. You can even point to a place on the floor and it will walk there and if it sees an object in the way, ASIMO will simply walk around it'. In the end, commerce may prove the best way to ensure a robot is safe to use - quite simply, no one is going to buy a robot that's not safe to have in the home.

As to how much your very own ASIMO might cost, De Braekeleer is unsure - 'predicting an exact price is impossible at present, as some technologies that are currently expensive may be much cheaper in years to come', he says. Robot developers see their robots being used 'everywhere that people are - at home, at work, anywhere they're needed'. Honda recognise that the potential market in areas such as care for the elderly and infirm, and while they don't see ASIMO as a replacement for human caregivers, they do see it as an assistant - the robot can perform more menial tasks such as cleaning the room, thus enabling the nurse to concentrate on his or her main task.

Sony vice-president Toshitada Doi once commented, "the last 10 years of the 20th Century were dominated by personal computers and the Internet. For the next 10 years, until 2010, we are certain that robots with independent movement will be the big thing." Sony have already unveiled their popular Aibo robotic dog and Qrio, a miniature humanoid, now waits in the wings. Toyota have just unveiled a range of four Partner Robots with the intention of developing a new commercial robotics arm by 2010 and last year, Kawasaki Heavy Industries showcased the HRP1, a humanoid robot that can work on a construction site. Millions of dollars and a lot of effort is going into being first in line for the race to supply the world's as yet barely tapped market for personal humanoid robots - estimated by the Japanese Government to be worth billions of dollars in the coming years. And these futuristic plastic bodies, space-helmet heads with video camera eyes are just the beginning - Toyota's Partner Robots have human-like lips, ASIMO will recognise faces, Qrio can entertain you after a hard day at the office - but all this is before the next wave of robots, due around 2020, that will feature devices with warm bodies, soft skin powered by electro-activated muscles and each with their very own personalities. The future looks like it's going to be very interesting.