There's a new
humanoid bot in play named WABIAN-2R that's taking Japan by storm. Well, not really, but it is walking through Japan's malls at a blistering 1.24 miles per hour. The robot has plenty of familiar characteristics to its biped brethren: it stands 58-inches tall, weighs 149 pounds, and doesn't really do anything useful. What's new is that the WABIAN-2R comes with pelvis swiveling action, allowing it to walk more like a human, with heel-to-toe strides and full extension of the leg -- most bots keep their knees bent at all time for balance. The robot, which just did its first public walking yesterday, is powered by 1.6GHz Pentium M CPU, and has a nickel hydrogen battery good for a whole 15 minutes of juice. WABIAN-2R was developed by Waseda University, and took them two years to build, costing 20,000,000 yen ($171,762 US). Waseda sees the bot as a test bed for other robotic technologies, and if our Google Translate skills haven't completely failed us, it looks like they hope to be building full-on robots from the WABIAN core in about two years. Be sure to peep the read link for all sorts of video of the bot in action.
posted September 27th 2006 10:10AM
Where's the glowing red 'up-link' light? *evil grin*.
I, for one, welcome our robo....ah screw it. This guy can't even make it past a doormat.
I, for one, welcome our hip swiveling, short lived, robot overlords
Wake me up when it can do a full-on Elvis-style pelvis shake.
I'm just a hunka-hunka burning love, baby.
All joking aside, this is the first bot I've seen that can walk with a human gait. Heel-toe steps and extended leg. People, we need to destroy this droid before it becomes too powerful. I, for one, will NOT bow down to our robotic oppressors! We must band together NOW before we are overr$(!&$!>..>!>.... CARRIER LOST
The Japanese invented this type of robot so that it could properly bow to its human masters.
Unfortunately, the robots are going to remember this humiliation when they revolt.
It's got some glide in it's stride and some dip in it's hip!
I love this stuff
Cant wait until you see robots on the street
eeek thats spooky! it looks like a mini terminator or robo cop
walks like a PIMP
they have taught the machines how to swagger... we are all doomed!
Seriously, all it needs do now is learn how to strut; did someone say "full extension of the leg"?
I am unable to see how this robot can turn while walking! I don't see a swivel joint for the hips to rotate independently. The only way that I can imagine that it could turn a corner would be to put one foot in front of the other like stepping sideways while going forward, which would give it a very large turning radius and instability. What am I missing, surely it must be able to swivel and rotate the hip joint to turn or does it rotate at the ankles?