Researchers unveil ultra realistic robot clone
An incredibly realistic robot which has been cloned to resemble one of the associate professors working on the project, has been unveiled by a team of Tokyo based researchers.
The 'Germinoid DK' robot is part of the Germinoid series of ultra realistic androids from Kokoro, Tokyo and Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, Osaka University, Japan. Constructed as a clone of Henrik Scharfe from Aalborg University in Denmark, the robot's movements and facial expressions are controlled via a pc based motion capture system that tracks facial expressions and head movements. It will be used for research into 'emotional affordances' in human/robot interaction, as well as to gauge the cultural differences in the perception of robots.
The project has been running for over a year and the robot is currently at Japan's Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Nara for further testing.
Images courtesy of IEEE Spectrum©
