New Humanoid from JVC

[limor]

Following the footsteps of Sony and Honda, JVC have showcased a small humanoid robot called J4. It is tiny and has the looks of a mini Asimo.
Videos and links at robots-dreams.com

[tempusmaster]

Limor,

Your question/poll is excellent. It took me a while to research. It turns out that J4 has 26 degrees of freedom. That explains why it looks so incredibly smooth when it walks.

[limor]

Thants the great thing when you can afford to design and build a humanoid without using the bulky RC-servos. with slimlined motors and a central motor-controler it is possible to fit many DOF in a small body.

Do you know if they plan to "mass produce" this model or is it just a marketing budget thing like Qurio?

[tempusmaster]

Thants the great thing when you can afford to design and build a humanoid without using the bulky RC-servos. with slimlined motors and a central motor-controler it is possible to fit many DOF in a small body.

Do you know if they plan to "mass produce" this model or is it just a marketing budget thing like Qurio?

(Note: I have to preface my comments with the usual "this is just my personal opinion" disclaimer.)

So true. Engineers can do some marvelous things when they aren't constrained by actually producing a product that someone can afford to buy...

The JVC core technology is sweet, but it takes hundreds of thousands of units or more to justify the design of some of the mechanical stuff that goes into one of their VCR's or video cams. They can put the same technology into a robot that demonstrates how great their technology is... but we're still quite a way from the point where the volumes will drive down the unit cost to make the application viable.

At this point they don't have any plans to mass produce it. It's an engineers dream, but from talking to the folks at the trade shows where it's appeared I get the impression that they really don't have a clear business plan laid out yet.

With the Sony axe having fallen, the folks on this particular project at JVC are probably hustling to justify keeping it alive.