Fujitsu Develops Human Task Support Robot

Fujitsu Laboratories. and Fujitsu Frontech have announced their joint development of a service robot that can provide support for various services in offices and commercial facilities. The newly developed robot features functions that enable it to provide such services as greeting and escorting guests onto elevators, operating the elevators, moving parcels using a cart, and security patrolling of buildings at night.

Fujitsu Frontech Limited will commercialise the robot, with sales scheduled to begin in June 2005. Details of the robot are to be presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan scheduled to be held from September 15 at Gifu University in Japan. There will also be a demonstration of the robot at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies Providing Image, Information and Communications (CEATEC) Japan 2004, opening on October 5 at Makuhari Messe in Japan.

There is great anticipation for the application of robots for a wide range of fields such as in medical services, social services, housework, and so on. According to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), societal expectations are high for robots to contribute to the realisation of an enriched society. Fujitsu Laboratories has been conducting ongoing R&D on robots for practical use, in the quest for robots to support people in their daily lives and make their lives more convenient.

Fujitsu's past robot offerings include the bipedal robots HOAP-1, that was developed in September 2001, and HOAP-2 developed in March 2003, both of which were designed for a broad range of applications for R&D of robot technologies and which are commercially available from Fujitsu Automation Limited.

Fujitsu also developed MARON-1 in October 2002, a home robot that can be controlled from a mobile phone and which is being sold by PFU Limited on a limited basis. Building on its past expertise in developing robots for R&D and home-use applications, Fujitsu went further to the next level by developing a robot that can co-exist with people and provide services in a variety of places such as offices and public facilities.

The new service robot is comprised of a head capable of moving up, down, left, and right, arms with four degrees of freedom (1), left and right motor-driven wheels that can rotate independently, a CPU that controls the entire robot, and a 3D visual processing system comprised of a digital signal processor (DSP) (2)and custom hardware.

Key features of the robot are as follows:

1. Ability to autonomously move to a designated location according to a pre-programmed map while carefully avoiding obstacles

The robot is capable of quickly perceiving people or things in its surrounding areas while simultaneously measuring their location, through the use of two cameras which can be quickly self-selected from its eight available cameras as necessary, using the newly developed 3-D visual processing system. Visual processing enables the robot to detect and avoid obstacles so that it can move safely to a designated location, thereby making it capable of completing tasks alongside people.

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