Researchers at Japan’s Yamagata University are developing a telepresence robot that sits on your shoulder and acts as an avatar for a friend’s speech and actions. The MH-2, or “miniature humanoid” robot, will perch on your shoulder and allow you to share an experience with a friend, much like Google’s Project Glass video demonstrates with a sunset. Unlike Google’s 2D glasses display though, the MH-2 shares what you see with another person, and allows them to react as if they were there with you: they wear a 360-degree immersive 3D display to see everything the MH-2 sees, and a motion capture device allows the robot to share their reaction with you.
Japanese researchers develop robot that lets you sit on a friend’s shoulder
Researchers at Japan’s Yamagata University are developing a telepresence robot that sits on your shoulder and acts as an avatar for a friend’s speech and actions.
Researchers at Japan’s Yamagata University are developing a telepresence robot that sits on your shoulder and acts as an avatar for a friend’s speech and actions.
The robot has 20 degrees of freedom throughout its arms, head, and body, and can simulate realistic breathing (which might be a bit creepy to see out of the corner of your eye). This complexity has a trade-off – the robot-wearer needs a large backpack of 22 actuators to control the robot's movements. The MH-2 was just introduced this month at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, but no word on when we'll see people walking around with angry ex-girlfriends berating them from a cozy shoulder seat.
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