Finally, a humanoid head that's almost cartoonish enough to not creep us out
Posted 10.13.2011 at 1:49 pm
8 Comments
Meka's S2 Anime-Inspired Robotic Head
San Francisco-based Meka Robotics wants to make robots that are human-safe and human-scale, but their new S2 humanoid head is more anime than animal. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Mechanically, it’s a marvel: seven degrees of freedom, zero-backlash gearing in the neck, high-res cameras in each eye, and eyelids that move with the fluidity of the real thing. All that adds up to extremely human-like motions and gestures that are so real you might just want to give the robot a hug.
Which is perfectly fine, says Meka co-founder Aaron Edsinger, as the entire robot was designed to safely work in close proximity with humans. That means imbuing the ‘bot with a sense of force in all of its moving parts so it knows when it has come into contact with something or someone.
IEEE Spectrum caught up with Meka, Edsinger, and the S2 head (atop Meka’s torso and arm assembly) recently at the Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) conference in San Francisco and shot some great video of Meka’s tech in action. See it for yourself below.
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Hook up a guy in a motion capture suit to this thing and watch the magic. Heck, get two of these plus a couple of Kinect arrays, and you have a system that can allow two people to be "together" in the same room, from across the planet.
We have eye trackers, motion capture, and a humanoid machine with the virtual intelligence to not hurt human beings. Telepresence is soon coming en masse with something like this, I just know it!
...man, the internet dating scene will REALLY take off once these do. Or not. Kind of a negative stigma to it these days.
not to mention the already prominet porn system -_- it's everywhere people and you know they will use this for their purposes
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I really enjoy seeing this type of robot technology being develop. If a real robot was as affordable as say a car, I buy one for the home, if it was smart at the robot in the movie Bicentennial Man.
i really like this. if the robots ever try to take over i hope they look like this. "lets be friends" as they hunt you down.
Kudos on the fluidity and consistency in its movement. As well as avoiding the all too common Japanese "Creepybot" feel. This makes for a very amicable little fellow.
Miniaturize it and and throw in a decent AI and I guarantee it will be 2012's furby!
on a side note, is it just me or does this little guys face remind you of David's little finger puppet pet in "Flight of the Navigator"?
awesome. i welcome you my friendly looking robot overlords!!
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Are the batteries included?
NEWS FLASH!
To Meka co-founder Aaron Edisnger, he was interrupted during one of his news meetings today,
by Meka’s newly develop Robot S2, shouting something about wanting to be “A REAL GIRL!“
More of this subject will be brought to you at our later News Report at 10pm.
BE THERE!