Pictured is Dr. Takanori Shibata with his robot seal named Pero.

Japan is currently working on several different types of robots: humanoid robots, home robot, pet robot, welfare robot, but Dr. Shibata has chosen the latter, welfare robots, for his project. The seal robot used to prevent dementia and for therapy, especially for elderly patients.

He said that the Japanese consider subjective measures like  "interesting, beautiful, and comfortable", and that he placed these measures highly when designing Pero. He tried using a Cat or Dog robot at first, but found that people didn’t respond well because they expected too much from them.

The Seal ‘bot weights 2.7 kg., has 3x microphones, 2 light sensors, position sensors, 12 touch sensors, and 7 actuators. It uses two 32bit RISC chips for voice recognition and learning behavior.

Dr. Shibata says that, "robot animal therapy produces "cheer" and "motivation" in patients", which is especially important to Japan’s quickly ageing population.

Also presented was Chroino, built by Dr. Tamataka Takahashi of the Robo-Garage.

Chroino is completely home-built and financed, has 24 motors, and a carbon fibre shell. He walks without the characteristic "bent knee" pose common to so many Japanese walking robots. Very impressive.


Here’s a pretty dark video clip of Chroino.