Cute dancing androids are always a crowd pleaser at robotic shows and this year’s CEATEC is no exceptionThis year’s theme is ‘Connecting Society, Co-Creating the Future’ and continues to center around IoT (Internet of things) development. Fujitsu is working on a 3D sensing technology in partnership with the Japan Gymnastics Association to help judges better score participants during competitions.
The technology recognizes joint positions and analyzes movement in real time and records it, allowing judges to playback footage with higher accuracy and more detailed information. “This hardware can measure and map-out a complete three-dimensional outline of the human body. In just one second, around two million lasers are sent out and reflected back. It uses this to measure a person’s silhouette” explains Fujiwara Hidenori, Head of Sports Business Development Division II, Fujitsu Limited.
Preferred Networks, Inc. are showing off a fully-autonomous tidying robot, which picks up toys and other objects off the floor faster than reluctant child. The robot uses deep learning to understand not only the layout of the room, but also what the various objects scattered about the room are, as well as where they should be placed.
Jun Hatori, of Preferred Networks explains how it works.
“So we are showing this kind of autonomous, tidying up robot which can clean up this room, and there’s no cheating on it. So, no human is controlling it. It’s using the camera on its face. It’s recognizing all the objects in this living room, and tidies up all the mess in the room.” It can also be given commands verbally and visually to clean specific areas of a room through regular speech or gestures such as pointing. It can be asked, too, where a specific item is, should its user have misplaced something.
Alps Electric is showing off a technology made for use with autonomous vehicles. The technology integrates a capacitive sensor which allows the user to activate touch panels on the steering wheel, as well as the inner door panel to adjust various settings, such as light within the vehicle. The technology also allows the user to open and close the windows through a touch-less gesture and can sense when the user has their hands on the steering wheel, and can differentiate between whether they are simply touching the wheel, or gripping it.
Hoshi Toshiyuki, Senior Manager for Product Development Dept. 1, Alps Electric Co., Ltd.says “In the next 4 to 5 years, the automotive industry will have a big change we call CASE. Because of this change, the interior, or cockpit, might be changed like this, just like living in a home.” The event has 725 exhibitors and more than 1,700 booths. 345 of the exhibitors are here for the first time and over 160 are educational institutions or startups.CEATEC is running until Friday October 19th.
