New approaches for media communication robots | Customer Feedback vol.2

Matsumura：: I want to use robots to improve people's ability to communicate with one another. That's currently my mission--to develop robots and sensors in this field. For example, robots for the elderly. I'm hopeful we can build a society where robots and sensors can help the elderly by comprehending their signs and commands. I think this would be fantastic. I am imagining something that can better society through communication. I don't want to rely on the military or weapons industry. I think a lot about what this kind of technology can be used for. If we intended, we could use the technology for any number of military purposes. But I think the fact we don't is the best aspect of Japanese innovative fields. The richness of personality inherent in Japanese robot designs has not yet caught on overseas, and I think that's a great strength of the culture here.

Takeda：: Has there been an influence from overseas to make military-use robots?

Matsumura：: They must be kidding, but we sometimes have military-types saying "A robot this cute couldn't possibly be used in the military." It's definitely not likely, none of the robots have guns! But they say "Well, if it's this cute, everyone would gather to look at it, and then we could blow them up!"

Matsumura：: Yes, I'm really happy that we don't. Also, I'm interested in how the robots we develop can be used in the medical field. For example, in helping with mental care--I think it'd be great to apply our knowledge in communication to helping in this field. I don't mean simply using robots directly, but using robots to research people's psychological behavior, and further develop the field of mental care. I think this would be wonderful.

Takeda：: It's not that we simply engage in producing the parts for the project, up to now, our process of manufacturing these robot parts consists of receiving the data from Mr. Matsumura, and--rather than just make the parts really well, we give him suggestions. As Mr. Matsumura spoke of before, we consider his requests, and suggest other possibly better options. "Maybe this way is better." Or, "this way will provide better results." Or "this way requires less parts." Moving forward, that's the kind of way we must work. We must work in a more collaborative way--that is the most meaningful. Not just in regards to work with Mr. Matsumura, but for the entire industry. Up to now the field is characterized by subcontractors simply making quality parts as requested [but not sharing collaborative ideas]. But that won't suffice any longer. I think we in the industry must be more assertive in sharing our knowledge, with proposals for plastics, design planning, and what methods are cheapest for mass production.

Matsumura：: Looking towards the near future, in order to develop new products and technology, we must innovate new components and parts, parts that have not yet been created yet. Further,we must produce completely realized products in order to realize a future 'life design' concept. That is to say, products that don't just function on the interior, but whose exterior design is functional and complete. It's just that doing proper design for these robots naturally requires a large amount of money. We have to make a product with a design that, despite costing a lot of money, can still be delivered within a certain price range--this process can be very jumbled up and confusing. It's at these times that crossEffect is the one who always assures us that it can be done. This robot, the 'Robovie-mR2' is a robot made as a platform for communication research. This robot has to be sold within a cheaper prices range in order for us to sell it to lots of researchers. As President Takeda iterated, crossEffect and Kyoto Shisaku Net have a deep knowledge of prototypes and manufacturing. It's so helpful to have them coming up with bold new ideas and offers during the conceptual planning process to reduce the amount of parts and work involved.

New approaches for
media communication robots