Talking 'robot astronaut' blasts into space - Telegraph.co.uk

The name Kirobo derives from the Japanese words "Hope" and "Robot," while Mirata comes from the word "future." The endeavour is a joint project between advertising company Dentsu, auto giant Toyota and robot creator Tomotaka Takahashi at the University of Tokyo's Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology. The system behind the robot's conversational functions and intelligence was designed by auto giant Toyota. The robonaut duo is capable of recognising human voice and speech, has preprogrammed responses and actions to questions while it can also create verbal responses based on its past conversations. Mr Takahashi, who heads his own robotics company, designed the Kirobo/Mirata hardware and their physical movements. The biggest challenge, he said is making the robot compatible with space. It took more than nine months and dozens of tests to ensure its reliability. Among the tests was taking a parabolic flight test to see if the Kirobo can move and talk in a low-gravity environment. The experiment was done on a small jet plane which can artificially reconstruct a low-gravity state for brief periods of time. Another experiment has tested the compatibility of the robot's power system with that of the International Space Station. The Kirobo and Mirata stand 13 inches tall, 7 inches wide, weigh just under 2.2 pounds, and for now, speak only Japanese. Kirobo will await Mr Wakata's arrival at the International Space Station which is due around November. Aboard the ISS, the two will engage in communication tests to see whether and how far the Kirobo can autonomously hold conversations with Wakata, as well as how its remote control functions from Earth. Source: APTN via Science - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEgzU6ZapBlRinqq9qJJVFf6YApcw&url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10221399/Talking-robot-astronaut-blasts-into-space.html

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