Humanoid Robot – EMIEW2

It seems that with each passing day man is getting closer and closer to making a humanoid that would pretty much be everything that he is except being organic in nature. Not to say that we are getting close that at a rapid pace, but it might be not too far off from today. In a step forward Hitachi Ltd exhibited its second humanoid robot, “EMIEW2,” at Hitachi uValue Convention 2008, the company’s private show that took place from July 17 to 18, 2008, at Tokyo International Forum.

This is the second humanoid from Hitachi and this one is far better than the first as it is equipped with 14 separate microphones that can actually recognize 3 separate voices that are involved in conversation simultaneously. This surely does not mean that it is getting close to a point where it can outsmart us, but at least it can now sneak up for you maybe in the office!

The EMIEW2 features a light-weight (13kg) body, the ability to move on wheels as well as on two legs and the 14 microphones mounted in the head that enhance its voice recognition capabilities. This is a huge jump considering that the first version in 2005 had a weight of staggering 70kags and obviously very limited voice recognition. The voice recognition function is a combination of sound source separation and sound pattern recognition. The robot can recognize voices spoken as far as 2m away. The fact that it can move on wheels or on foot is a bonus too. Seems like Hitachi really has put the best efforts in to this one!

Via Gizmowatch