The Honda Robot

Introduction:
The Honda motor company of Japan have developed one of the most, if not the most, advanced humanoid robots in existence today. The humanoid stands 1.6 meters tall and weighs 130Kg. The large back pack contains the control computer and battery. The robot has been shown to be able to walk and to climb stairs. There is also a movie available showing the robot kicking a ball. Its not clear however whether the robot has deliberately kicked the ball or merely walked into it.

The P3, as this version of the robot is known, is equipped with gyrometers, g-force sensors, force sensors on its ankles, and vision cameras. The robot is autonomous in so far as it is remotely controlled via wireless Ethernet. It's battery provides enough power for ~25 minutes of operation.

Control System:
Unfortunately there is very little publicly available information about the computational control of this robot. It is believed that the control systems, its artificial brain, is not as advanced as its mechanics. Although the robot displays very impressive walking abilities it seems that every minor movement must be remotely controlled and adjusted by a human operator.

Vision Research:
Six scientists at Carnegie Mellon university in the USA are now developing the vision and navigation systems for the Honda robot. They are using laser range finders and stereo vision cameras to build 3D models of objects and the environment. Other projects in the robotics and vision groups have successfully developed systems for the recognition of 3D curved objects and the recognition of colour, texture, movement and facial expressions. These systems are used on other autonomous mobile robots such as the lunar rover demo and an autonomous helicopter. Also under development are VLSI based computational sensors which integrate sensing and processing onto a single chip.

Links:
Honda Robot Research: www.honda.co.jp/english/technology/robot
Carnegie Mellon Vision Research: www.cs.cmu.edu/~honda