Robosapien

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The Robosapien is an electronic toy developed by NASA robotics physicist Mark W. Tilden and built and sold by WowWee .

functionality

The Robosapien has movable body parts driven by electric motors as well as various sensors , which means that it is able to interact to a certain extent with its environment. The movement sequences are programmable and can be called up via a remote control . This enables quite complex sequences of movements, such as dancing , karate, etc. The Robosapien creates balance by using correspondingly heavy and wide feet.

Further development

In the meantime, the successor Robosapien V2 has been released, which has also been available in Germany since November 2005. He is characterized by an imposing size of around 60 cm, has much better gripping hands, can now also lift heavy objects such as a beverage can and independently sit down, lie down and stand up. The controller is now similar to a game console input device. The language ability and programmability have been significantly expanded, and the V2 now has the ability to recognize people and then greet them by handing them out or waving them. The weight is around 5.9 kg.

At the end of 2006 the next version was presented, the RS-Media. With subwoofer, MP3 player, camera, SD card slot and PC connection. All functions can be programmed on the PC. Four different personalities are pre-set. Personalities can be programmed using the software supplied. The possibilities are almost endless. MP3 files can be recorded and assigned to various functions. Thus the RS-Media can speak with the most varied of voices or comment on commands.

Use at the Robocup

World's first demonstration game in the Humanoid League

Two teams (University of Osnabrück versus University of Freiburg), each with three modified Robosapien, played the first soccer game between autonomous humanoid robots worldwide at the RoboCup German Open 2005 (previously only free kicks and the like were performed). The main modification was to replace the head with a PDA . A control program running on the PDA could now perceive the environment via a camera and send infrared signals to the robot in order to react appropriately.

Awards

Web links