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1. Tech Works Studios Inc has built a SUPER humanoid which will be installed in a museum in the Netherlands.  It cost about $200,000.  It has about 36 DOF.  It will be covered with silicone skin when completed and will appear to speak phonetically.

      Techworks.jpg (70656 bytes)

2. Hitachi has released a new mobile robot called the Emiew (Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existence as Workmate).  They claim it is the fastest robot to date.  It moves on wheels at 6 Km/hr (3.7 mi/hr) making it about twice as fast as Asimo.  It stands 1.3 m tall (51 inches) and weighs 70 Kg (154 lb).  It can talk and has a vocabulary of 100 words.  Each of its arms has 6 DOF.  No info on availability or price.  Here are a few articles:  Japan Times,  BBC News,  and OnRobo.   

 Emiew1.jpg (22478 bytes)  

3. Silicon Graphics Inc of Japan has released a cute little humanoid called Posy. If you click on the picture (at the above link) you will get a lot more pictures.  It is supposed to be patterned after a flower girl.  Here is an article in Japanese.

     posy2.jpg (18192 bytes)     Posy

4. Prof. Kazuhiro Kosuge of Tohoku University in Japan has released his PBDR (Partner Ballroom Dance Robot).  This robot stands 165 cm (5'5") tall and dances around on three wheels under her dress.  But she can't really be light on her feet at 100 Kg (220 lbs).  Here is another article.

dancing_robot.jpg (15584 bytes)    dancing_robot3.jpg (42970 bytes)    

5. Florida Robotics offers a life-size female entertainment robot called Ursula. Ursula is 5'10" tall and costs $20,000 to purchase.  She can also be rented. They have other robots available for sale or rental from their robot lab.

   ursula.jpg (71556 bytes)    

Ursula image is 70K

6. Sony has just revealed another walking/dancing android called SDR-4X. This android is obviously intended to compete against the HOAP-1. Here is a news article which explains what the new android can do. According to Toshitada Doi, "This robot will [sic] cost as much as one car, a luxury car." You can take that to mean it will cost about $40,000 (the same as HOAP-1). Here is an article in German.

sdr_4x_1.jpg (15283 bytes)    sdr_4x_2.jpg (13975 bytes)

Here is a link to SDR-4X singing.

3rd secret android project is revealed:

7. On September 10, 2001 Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. announced their toy android.  They have build an 18" tall 13 pound android with 20 degrees of freedom. It is called HOAP-1 (Humanoid Open Architecture Platform 1).  It will go on sale in Japan on Sept. 17 for the surprisingly high price of $41,000 or 4.8 million Yen. Here is a story from Sept 10. And Sept 12 (pic).   And here is another from Sept 14.   

    hoap1.jpg (16572 bytes)    Hoap-1

8. Sony has built a small WALKING android which they call SDR-3X.  It stands about 20 inches tall and is about 9 inches wide and 6 inches deep. The first press release was on November 21, 2000. Another article came out in Infoworld.   Four of these androids were on display at Robodex 2000 in Yokohama the weekend of  (11/24/00 - 11/26/00).   

801038.jpg (16716 bytes)       16KB

9.Nao is a small humanoid offered by Aldebaran Robotics of Paris, France.    Nao is 55 cm (22 inches) tall  and has 23 degrees of freedom.  It can walk, and talk with a speech synthesizer, and can recognize spoken words.   It is WiFi enabled.   Aldebaran Robotics was founded by Bruno Maisonnier (CEO) in 2005 and they have a staff of 12.   This humanoid will be offered for sale in the summer of 2007.    Estimated price is $3000 - $3500.  (* NEW *)

     nao.gif (13964 bytes)    Nao

10. Choromet (also known as HRP-2m) is a small humanoid offered by Moving Eye and General Robotics of Japan.    This humanoid stands 35 cm (14 inches) tall and weighs 1.5 Kg.   Its has 20 degrees of freedom and can walk and stand up by itself.   The price is  500,000 Yen or about $4,250. (* NEW *)

     choromet1.jpg (23001 bytes)   More

11. Kyosho of Japan is offering a small humanoid called Manoi AT01 for   150,000 Yen or about $1300. This humanoid stands 34 cm (13.3 inches) tall and weighs about 1.4 Kg.     This robot is sold in kit form with over 200 screws and a 100 page manual.  It has 18 or 20 degrees of freedom and is capable of walking and waving its arms.  (* NEW *)

     manoi-at01.jpg (23458 bytes)     manoi-at01_2.jpg (90088 bytes)     More

12. Kyoto University and Tomotaka Takahashi have build a small humanoid called Chroino.  It is about 35 cm tall and weighs about 1 Kg.  It has a very human-like walking action.  It has 24 degrees of freedom. It is not currently for sale. (* NEW *)

     chroino1.jpg (11938 bytes)     chroino2.jpg (11029 bytes)   More

13. The Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo Japan has several small android projects. They have MK3, MK4, and MK5. All the pages are in Japanese so I can't get much info, but MK4 appears to be about 14" tall and 10" wide.

mk4.jpg (13712 bytes)       MK4

14. A new Canadian company called Dr. Robot has developed a small android called Dr. Robot which can be used either for enetertainment or as a home security system. This android can walk and stands about 60 cm tall. It will be offered in May of 2003 for $1500 - $3000 each. The company is located in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

     drrobot2.jpg (25638 bytes)      Dr. Robot

15. SEGA has also joined the fun! Here is a news release which shows their new toy androids.  

sega_humanoid.jpg (20888 bytes)

    21KB

16. Sony announced the Aibo2 on October 12, 2000. This Aibo went on sale in Japan on November 16, 2000 for 150,000 yen.  Actually there are a lot of robot dogs available nowSony has just announced that they will DISCONTINUE Aibo soon.  Sony has sold over 150,000 robot dogs since their introduction in 1999.  

US Aibo link.

aibo2.jpg (7501 bytes)     Aibo2

17. There is now a robot cat called Necoro to compete with Aibo. It was introduced in 10/16/2001. The cost is 185,000 yen ($1530). It is built by Omron and comes complete with FUR. Here are a couple more articles. (1) (2)

necoro.jpg (18912 bytes) 

18. Kokaro, a subsidiary of Sanrio of Japan has produced a talking humanoid robot which they call S-Doll. It can understand speech and conduct a conversation with a human. It will sell for 50 - 100 million yen.

sdoll1.jpg (15773 bytes)   sdoll3.jpg (8110 bytes)

19. A Utah company called Sarcos also offers entertainment androids. They offer anthropomorphic robots which appear to be normal human size.  No pricing information is available.  This probably means that if you have to ask, you can't afford it.   Here is a picture of one.

sarcos4b.jpg (103K bytes)   Image is 103K

20. Mytech is an entertainment robot company which was founded by Mineo Akiyama in June of 1997 and is located in Tokyo, Japan.  They offer a cute robot which can present a recorded message for you while moving its head, arms, & mouth.  It stands about 23" (60 cm) tall. They have several movies of their robots in action. Their robots are called MechaRobo.  (* NEW  1/29/04 *)

      Mecha_robo.jpg (41667 bytes)     MechaRobos

    Their site has both English and Japanese pages.  

21.  A German company called Mabotic Robotics and Automation is now offering two or three entertainment robots. The best one seems to be SAM.  This robot has 43 DOF.  (* NEW *)

     mabotic_SAM.jpg (80471 bytes)    <= SAM

Mabotic Robotics & Automation also offers a robot called H10 which has good 5 fingered hands which can do actual work. The different face styles all have animated eyes and speech synchronized with lip movements.(* NEW *)

mabotic_H10.jpg (161848 bytes)   <= H10

22.  Here is a fun robot called DAVE - for dynamic animatronic vehicular entity.  This robot is designed to mimick the (remote) operator's movements.  DAVE was built by a team of seven designers/engineers in London. The leader is Mike Onslow.  They have some videos which you can look at here.    (* NEW *)

      cyber-dave.jpg (35333 bytes)

           DAVE

23. George York, president of YFX Studios sent me an email about his company. They build animatronic animals and insects. And now they are building an animatronic man. He is called Master Lee. They have a 3MB movie of the head talking with facial expressions. And now he has a body!  George says he can move his hands and arms.  Next they will try to make him walk.

  JEFF.JPG (40693 bytes)   master_lee.jpg (113952 bytes)  

 

24.  International Robotics, NY, NY International Robotics has completely redone their website and it now looks GREAT! They have numerous show robots which roll around and presumably deliver your taped messge - such as the two shown below.

IRI_PULSAR.jpg (8919 bytes)         IRI_SCIFI.jpg (6893 bytes)   

   Pulsar               and         SCI-FI

25. There is a new biggest and baddest fighter in town. Its the 9 foot tall robot "Man vs Machine".  Keith Lock who is the promoter and executive producer of Man vs Machine sent me some nice pictures of his robot.

      Man_vs_Machine.jpg (343949 bytes)    Man vs Machine

Man vs Machine is a fighting robot which weighs in at 1002 pounds (455 Kg)  They have a nice website to promote their robot called ManVsMachine.

     Fighting_robot.gif (217802 bytes)   in the ring

 

26. Thanks to our readers we know that Shunichi Mizuno, president of Cybot Corp (Tokyo, Japan) built the life-sized animatronic Marilyn Monroe entertainment robot shown below (left). Ron Leblanc sent another color photo of the face (below right). Sorry, I have no URL for Cybot Corp.

    CYBOT.JPG (116417 bytes)   Monrobot.jpg (30604 bytes)    

27. Robosapien is a humanoid robot about a 14" tall which is now available from www.TrendTimes.com. Really walks (fast), turns, picks up, throws, dances, and gives a mean Barney-Gumble style beltch. Fully programmable from ergonomic remote control, has over 60 built-in functions for fast and flexible movements. It will retail for about $100.   Perhaps you would like to buy a Robosapiens robot for your child for Christmas.    Version 2 is now available.  Its more capable and more fun!

   www_toy.jpg (56568 bytes)         robosapien2.jpg (15178 bytes)  

     Original                        Version 2

28. Aiko Trading Company is offering a remote controlled robot called Dream Force 1 RC.  It seems to have lots of capabilities such as picking up things and walking.  It can also shoot BBs - no kidding.  Its a little expensive ($520), but looks like fun for the kids.

     Dream_Force.jpg (56486 bytes)    Dream Force 1 RC

   

29. Robos, a company in Japan, is now offering a 90cm (36") tall robot called Kozoh.  It weighs 16 Kg (35 pounds) and can operate for 1 hour on its battery.  No indication of the price.

      kozoh.jpg (64206 bytes)  

30.Takara Toys of Japan has come up with a clever humanoid called FII-RII. The cost is about $200. Once you connect the FII-RII to a PC via USB, you can control electric appliances even from outside the home through Internet accessible PCs or cell phones.

       fii-rii.jpg (7198 bytes)

31. AIST (The Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) in Japan has announced a therapeutic robot seal called Paro.   It appears to be about 18" (45 cm) long and is covered in white fur.  It responds to stroking.  This toy will sell for $2500 - $3000. 

    paro.jpg (36981 bytes)   Paro the robot seal.

32. Klitgaard Design of Copenhagen Denmark is offering an entertainment robot called K-bot.  It is an attractive mobile robot with piercing blue LED eyes. Designer Brian Johansen says they will soon be offering the LEDs for sale as well.  K-bot will rent for 100 - 150 Euros per hour.  

silver_barrel.jpg (31211 bytes)   klitgaard.jpg (40143 bytes)  

33. Bandai Co. Ltd in Japan has a new toy robot called the "BN-7".  It stands .68m or 27" tall and weighs 20kg (44 lbs). It has image recognition capabilities and emotions. It can understand speech and talk too - apparently in many languages. Here is an article in Japanese. Here is the press release for the BN-7 from March 18 (English version).  This toy was shown at the recent Robodex2002.

    bandai_bn7.gif (12196 bytes)

34. Another Florida company called Robots 2 Go offers Ralphie the Robot. Ralphie is 5'3" tall and weighs 185 pounds.  Ralphie is not very anthropomorphic. But, he can play a CD and deliver your message in three languages; French, Spanish, and English.

          ralphie.jpg (39170 bytes)  

         Ralphie image is 38K

35. A French entrepreneur by the name of Marc Reynaud sent me some pictures of two entertainment robots that he has built.  He calls them Birillo (left) and Stratos (right).  His company, called Robotika, has offices in Luxor, Italy and Paris.  Marc's email is info@birillo.com.

  Birillot.jpg (23099 bytes)       Stratos1.jpg (19430 bytes)    

           23KB                       19KB

36. Kent Davis sent me an email about his entertainment robot company called RoboMedia Inc. Here is a picture of one of their robots.

          robomed.jpg (16483 bytes)     

                  16KB

37. Mike Mosieur sent me an email about his entertainment robot company called Entertainment Technologie. He is located in Ocala, Florida. He is working on a web site now. So his email is mmosieur@praxis.net.

 robot3.jpg (12099 bytes)      robot4.jpg (11662 bytes)   

        12KB                         11KB

38. I found another company called Robots 4 Fun. Here is a picture of one of their robots.

                 bots4fun.jpg (12727 bytes)    

                       12KB

39. Walt Noon's company called Show Design builds theme park animatronic animals/monsters/figures.  Here is a picture of one of their robots.

           waltnoon.gif (29965 bytes)   

          Image is 29KB

40. Jules Bamberger sent me an email about his entertainment robot company       called Atlas Interactive Robotics. They build remotely controlled robots which can move around and converse with the audience or your customers. The unseen operator can talk to the audience via the radio link in the robot.

          atlasrobots.jpg (25627 bytes)    

            Image is 25KB

41.  Mannetron offers two robots called Ilano & Max which are very anthropomorphic.   The one shown below is called Ilano. It is a domestic robot for the home market only.

         ilano1.jpg (28956 bytes)     27KB 

42.  Robot Entertainment has a really fancy website. They offer various robots such as the one shown below. They will construct specialty robots per your needs.

         R17.jpg (8455 bytes)    

                    9KB.

43.  Probotics America has an excellent website too. They build robots for safety, education, and entertainment. They will also construct specialty robots per your needs.

 probotics.jpg (15096 bytes)      probot2.jpg (11827 bytes)     

       15KB                         12KB

44.  Life Formations  has an excellent website. They offer a wide variety of animatronic figures (such as the one shown below). Check out their fabulous gallery. They also will construct specialty robots per your needs.

         franklin.jpg (17855 bytes)      17KB.

45.  Mark Wilde sent me an email about Tarobots International. They build entertainment robots in the form of mobile boxers in which the customer rides INSIDE the boxer and slugs it out with another similarly attired boxer. It sounds like a lot of fun!

   boxer2.gif (12985 bytes)        boxer3.gif (10311 bytes)  

            13KB                        11KB

46.  I also received an email about a French site called L'Atelier Des Robots. Below is a picture of one of their robots called Leon. Check them out even if you can't read French!

          leon0.jpg (8674 bytes)      

                 8KB

47. Jeff Leininger of Robotic Entertainers Inc sent me an email about his company. They have robot costumes up to 10 feet tall (3m) which you can walk around in a scare the daylights out of people. Check this out:

giant.gif (67163 bytes)

48. NEC has gotten into the act now. They are offering a small personal companion robot called the R100. It can talk and see with 2 CCD cameras and roll around on its wheels. It can also recognize spoken commands!

          NECR100.gif (7623 bytes)     R100

49. NEC has also built a small personal robot which they call PaPeRo. Here is the press release. PaPeRo details are here. PaPeRo can understand 650 phrases and can speak 3000.

nec_papero.jpg (44974 bytes)     44KB

50. Matt Brady sent me an email about his company called The Mascot Organization. They have various robots available to promote your company.  Shown below is ROM.

     mascot.jpg (17437 bytes)    ROM - 18KB

51. Hans Rosenfeld sent me an email about his company called Tools Musical Fantasy Adventure. They have various robots available for promotions. Shown below is Mr. Ellero.

     MRELLERO.JPG (26195 bytes)    Mr. Ellero - 28KB

 

52. I received an email from Eric Boura. His company which was called Effix New Marketing has gone out of business. Sorry, to see you go. Hope you will start another company soon.

sensall_new.jpg (64547 bytes)  SENSALL 

53. A Korean company call Dajin System Company Ltd has built a 14" tall android toy called Lucy.   It weighs 1.2 kg and has 16 DOF.  They started their project in November of 1999.

     lucy.gif (16599 bytes)    Lucy - 17KB

54. Viva Robotics is a company located in Virginia just outside Washington DC. They offer promotional robots such as the one shown below.

viva_robot.jpg (15002 bytes)    Viva robot - 15KB

55. Media Integration and Communication Research Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan has introduced a 3 foot tall entertainment robot. It was seen for the first time at Robodex2000. Its called Robovie.

robovie.gif (36068 bytes)    Robovie - 35KB

56. Jose Luis Martinez sent me an email about his creation called Seguritron. He has developed Seguritron over several years and has really produced a very impressive robot. Its arms and body move and it can talk and answer questions. His site has lots of information. He has a whole page of pictures and another page of details of the construction of the robot.

     Seguritron.jpg (52198 bytes)     51KB.

Is this the robot from "Short Circuit"?

57. Claudia from Tecnoefectos in Argentina emailed me about their company.  They produce several different versions of walking and talking robots.  They can move their arms and hands and talk (deliver your promotional message).

 

     tecnoefectos.jpg (38537 bytes)   38KB

58. Another Florida company called  the Sally Corporation also offers entertainment robots. Here is a new picture of "Nazeer" their featured storyteller in their latest interactive dark ride -- The Challenge of Tutankhamon -- which opened this past summer in Brussels.  It looks GREAT!  

              Animatronic Nazeer

59. This robot is called "Pb-BZ007" and is built by Daihen Corporation. The robot was shown at the recent Osaka Roboexpo.  It appears that the Daihen Mechtronics division built it, but it doesn't seem to be accessable from the outside world.  Thanks to Eric and Hiro for this information.

     Robo4.jpg (19546 bytes) 

60. Steve Watt sent me an email about his entertainment robot company called Robot Promotions Inc.  They have two robots available called Peeper and Quadracon.

QuadPeep.gif (12158 bytes)   Quadracon (left)

and Peeper (right).

61. The Martial Arts Robot is an entertainment robot built by Faustex Systems Corp. This robot, called the Hyperkinetic Humanoid (H2) Robot , has 22 degrees of freedom.  It is mounted on a mechanical frame which controls its actions. It is available for rent at about $500 or for purchase at about $50,000. This organization is located in Austin, Texas.

          h2robot.jpg (119199 bytes)    

    H2 image is 116K

62. Advance Robot Promotions of London, England offers two promotional robots.  The smaller of the two, called GEM , appears to be a knock-off of R2D2.  The other, called Electra, is billed as "Earth's most beautiful robot".    Unfortunately, it appears to be a person wearing a shiny gold plastic costume (recently identified as Pam Sinclair).

   gem.jpg (54613 bytes)  Electra and Gem 

63. Hasbro in now offering an Interactive R2D2 for kids (thanks Tom Sheer).for $100 - $150.  It has 40 voice commands and I'm sure kids will enjoy it a lot. Here for $110.   (* New 03/09/2006 *)

     Interactive_R2D2.jpg (45313 bytes)

64. A company in Kansas City called Main Street Entertainment offers Ozzie the Robot who looks a lot like Ralphie. Ozzie is 5'9" tall but not very anthropomorphic. He has a built-in VCR which can play your video on his chest.

          ozzie.jpg (15606 bytes)         Ozzie (15KB)

65. Heimo is a really big robot / animatronic entertainment company in Jagsthausen, Germany. They build all kinds of characters including pirates, fantasy figures, dinosaurs, and any custom figure you want. 

heimo.jpg (40366 bytes)   Pirates

66. CreatureBot is located in Korea. They are building artificially intelligent beings.  Their first offering is called Alpha.  Alpha can carry on a real conversation with a real person.  They have a video of Alpha being questioned here.  Donald Dixon is president of CreatureBot.

     alpha_being.jpg (20472 bytes)    Alpha

67. ZMP Inc of Japan has just announced a new walking android called Nuvo.  It stands 39cm tall and weighs 2.5 Kg.  It is controlled by a mobile phone.  It can get to its feet again if it falls down - a lot easier said than done!  ZMP is also involved in producing the PINO robot from Kitano Symbiotic Systems. 

  zmp_nuvo1.jpg (25282 bytes)    zmp_nuvo2.jpg (14042 bytes)    

68. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is not about to let Sony outdo them! They have built robot fish! Shown below is a fish that became extinct about 500 million years ago. Mitsubishi has brought it back to life. Its battery operated and swimming in a tank in Yokohama, Japan. They have also built a coelacanth (pronounced seal-a-canth) and even a robot cat to compete directly against Sony's dog. They plan to build lots of extinct species for museums and aquariums.  It seems they have found a new line of business.  Perhaps they will build a new   Jurassic Park (which I tried to do in 1985).

          fish.jpg (50241 bytes)     

         Sea Bream (49KB).

 

69. Svedka Vodka has introduced a female humanoid robot called Svedka to help sell their Vodka.  They are currently repainting the parts but soon it will be on display again.

Svedka1.jpg (45393 bytes)     Svedka2.jpg (74948 bytes)   Svedka

70.  The Xi'an Superman Sculpture Research Council specializes in building Dopplegangers.  They have built many including one if its founder Zou Ren Ti (show below).  They are located in the city of Xi'an in the province of  Shaanxi.  This is the same city where the famous Terracotta Army is located. The androids can move their heads and speak.

        Zou Ren Ti

71.  Hanson Robotics, located in Richardson, Texas, builds very life-like android heads with up to 60 muscle actions.  David Hanson's best known work is his head of Einstein, shown below.

      Image ownership disputed

72. Kumotek is located in Lewisville, Texas.  They design, build and sell robots under the name of Roboporium.  The owner, Matt Fischer also works on projects with Hanson Robotics.

         KHR-1HV (19 DOF)

73. Self Defense Technologies Inc., located in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has developed a boxing android which you can program with many different sequences of punches.  Luther Trawick (757-235-9073) has developed this robot over a period of 16 years.  This business is for sale.  Please contact Luther if you are interested.

        Android boxer.

Chris Willis
Android World Inc., President
3311 Santa Monica Dr.
Denton, TX., 76205, USA    
phone:  (US) 940-783-1364
 
General Information: crwillis@androidworld.com