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Partner Robots v.1 Legs Country: Japan Manufacturer: Toyota Year: 2005 Height: 4ft (120cm) Weight: 77lbs (35kg) Degrees of Freedom: 31 Webpage Info

Toyota?s Partner Robots played music on drums and trumpets at their 2005 World EXPO debut in Aichi Japan. Their use of musical instruments demonstrated the excellent hand and arm coordination Toyota has developed for their robot franchise. Toyota?s Partner Robots are designed to work in the health care industry to help attend to Japans aging population, but Toyota also intends to implement them in their automotive manufacturing facilities. According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Toyota plans to become the first in the industry to use advanced robots in all production processes, with the aim to cut production costs to levels comparable to those in China.

The bipedal humanoid Partner Robot is similar in height and stature to Honda?s ASIMO and has human-like lips that allow it to play the trumpet.

The Rolling Partner Robot rides on Segway-like wheels instead of legs for greater speed and stability on consistent flat surfaces such as factory floors. There were two types of Rolling Partner Robots on display at the 2005 World EXPO: music playing robots to demonstrate hand/arm coordination and a DJ designed to carry on conversations with people.

Toyota showcased a forth robot that appears to be aimed at entertainment, but little is known about it. It uses a novel system of wires instead of high-torque electric motors to move its arms and legs, resulting in faster more natural movement.

Posted September 4th 2006 5:46PM

bedlam17 One of these is supposedly going to be in each of 5,000 Toyota stores in 2010.

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