ASIMO has undergone huge update on its intelligence technologies, and it now has improved AI skills, and can work without human control for long time. It has improved locomotion now and can run and hop and has 57 axes of motion. This is a big step in making the humanoid robot ASIMO, which was first launched 12 years before, useful. The efforts came after heavy criticism to the robots for their usefulness in the recently happened nuclear accident at Fukushima plant.
ASIMO is now a novel robot that has transitioned to an autonomous machine from being an automatic machine with improved decision-making capabilities in response to its surroundings. The all-new droid the ASIMO was showed off by President Takanobu Ito at Honda Fundamental Technology Research Center (FTRC) in Wako in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo.
ASIMO can avoid an approaching object (person) using data from the pre-set space sensors and it can even change course of movement to avoid bumping into a person. Furthermore, it can even recognize the voices of many people speaking at a time.
ASIMO creators, Honda, has given the droid boost up treatment especially to the robot’s control and balance technology, so that the droid can hop on one or two legs and even run at 9 kmph (5.6 mph) pace (considering its earlier speed of 6 kmph it’s a big improvement). The robot can even walk on uneven terrains. The humanoid now comes slimmer and lighter weighing 48 kg (105 pounds) which is about 6 kg lesser than the previous generation droid.
ASIMO also shows better dexterity. The robot has been given extra freedom to its hands, additional 23 degrees flexibility over its predecessor. Now every finger can move independently, and each of the fingers comes with one tactile sensor and one force sensor. Asimo can now open bottle, lift it and pour stuff into paper cups without errors like crushing them. The most amazing improvement added to the robot’s skills is the sign language. ASIMO can now gesture an “I love you” sign.
The bipedal robot also feature self-propelled articulated arm which is based on ASIMO technology and the makers say that the robot can be used at nuclear disaster sites. The arm can be controlled (remote) to help it approach the object and perform tasks stably even in the most confined spaces with obstacles. With so much advancements yet, Honda does acknowledge that it takes more time to make robots practical for every business.
