Toyota Motor Corp. has sold enough cars to put one outside every Japanese home. Now it wants to put robots inside. Well-known for its…
Toyota Motor Corp. has sold enough cars to put one outside every Japanese home. Now it wants to put robots inside.
Well-known for its automated assembly lines, Toyota sees a not-so-far-off future in which robots transcend the factory and become commonplace in homes, helping with chores — and even offering companionship — in an aging society where a quarter of the population is over 65 and millions of seniors live alone.
Machines have become much smarter in the last decade or so. Yet, every attempt to build one that can do simple things like load a washing machine or carry groceries encounters the same basic, physical problem: the stronger a robot gets, the heavier and more dangerous it becomes. What Toyota has going for it are $29 billion in cash reserves, a new artificial intelligence research center and a well-respected inventor, Gill Pratt, heading its effort.
“This is a company with so many resources that you can never ignore them,” said Morten Paulsen, a Tokyo-based analyst at CLSA Japan Securities Co., who’s covered the robotics industry for decades.
Toyota has been experimenting with robots since at least 2004, when it unveiled a trumpet-playing humanoid with artificial lips, lungs and movable fingers that could accompany an actual human orchestra.
Since then research has become more practical. Toyota’s latest android, the T-HR3, is a kind of avatar that can be manipulated remotely via wearable controls, with vision goggles that allow users to see through the machine’s camera-eyes.
