Asimo Honda Robot Failed Performance as Science Museum Guide

The Asimo Honda Robot is Japan’s most sophisticated humanoid robot to date. Unveiled almost 13 years ago, the famed robot has been searching for something to do and has finally got a big break as a science museum guide.

Asimo was deployed at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. Part of his task includes interacting with museum guests which can be very challenging indeed.

In the museum, amazed guests couldn’t seem to get enough of Asimo and had attempted to snap some of his photos with their smartphones. However, as they raise their arms with their smartphones to take pictures, Asimo had interpreted it differently by asking repeatedly if someone from the crowd wanted to throw him a question.

Unlike the popular Siri technology of the smartphone, Asimo doesn’t have the same voice recognition capability. To compensate for this, it was built with a touch-panel device which the guests can use whenever they want to interact with the popular robot. The device has been programmed to recognize and respond to around 100 questions during the robot’s four-week stay in the museum. Asimo’s earlier version had in fact been visible at the museum for several years now and had since been doing demos every day.

Currently, Asimo can easily recognize when a child is waving a hand to it. However, it still needs some help when it comes to comprehending on what the wave actually means.

Satoshi Shigemi, head of Honda’s robotics technology, wanted Asimo to be equipped with the capacity to recognize a person talking to it and to respond accordingly.

Though the development of Asimo had been very costly, it has never failed to impress the crowd from the time it was publicly revealed in 2000. The robot was able to perform jogging, fluid walking, and easy manipulating of tactile objects such as cups and bottles. It received an update in 2011 though its artificial intelligence still needs some work.

In the future, people may not have to go to the museum just to catch a glimpse of Asimo. He could be given a new assignment at a train station where he would be helping people to buy tickets from the confusing vending machines. This is if its developer would teach it how to properly interpret waves.