Robotics
EMIEW2 was developed as part of Hitachi's efforts to create a service robot with diverse communication functions that could safely coexist with humans while conducting necessary services.
To ensure agility and safety in an office environment, EMIEW2 was designed to a compact height of 80 cm and a portable weight of 14 kg. Further, to enable harmonious interaction while working with people, EMIEW2 is able to travel at the same speed as humans as well as stop stably. The 2-wheel 6 km/hr high speed feature developed for EMIEW1 is retained in a two 2-wheel mechanism, which enables agile 2-wheel movement, and a wheeled-leg type mechanism was developed to get over floor level differences in the office.
A service robot that work in a office building is required to run over safely an obstacle on a floor, such as a threshold, mattress, or electric cables, therefore, "Active suspension" and "Idling control technology" were built into the leg mechanism of EMIEW2. "Active suspension" is consisted of a spring and an actuator. The spring absorbs softly a big impact generated by running over a step on floor, and the actuator recovers the inclination of the robot according to the transformation of the spring. Moreover, "Idling control" is a function to control an excessive idling of the wheel by the uncontrollability in the wheel jumping timing when the robot run over the step, and for a steady running to continue after it lands.
To talk with the person in a real office building, the robot is required to recognize accurately human voices with serious noisy condition in which the noises come from upper and lower, right and left, various directions, moreover the robot mechanism becomes a source of the noise. This time, the technologies that suppress the noise efficiently with 14 microphones installed in the head of EMIEW2 were developed. One of them is a horizontal and vertical voice direction analyzing technology that is able to focus the voice search space efficiently, and another is noise-canceling technology against the noises generated by the robot self. The voice recognition performance has been improved rapidly by these technologies.
EMIEW2 has the same voice communication, and obstacle evasion technology* which enables safe maneuvering between moving objects, as in EMIEW 1, but with the addition of autonomous moving technology which plots how to reach a destination by automatically mapping the robot's surroundings. Incorporation of these three technologies enables EMIEW2 to navigate through corridors, around obstacles, weave between moving people, guide visitors to their destinations, and deliver drinks and documents.
* Developed as part of a joint research project between Tsukuba University and Hitachi, Ltd. This technology incorporates the results of cooperative research conducted by Professor Takashi TSUBOUCHI, Shinichi YUTA (Director of Tsukuba Industrial Liaison and Cooperative Research Center), and Hitachi, Ltd.
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 800 mm (h), 300 mm (w), 250 mm(d) |
| Weight | 14 kg |
| Moving mechanism | 2/4-wheel transformable wheeled leg-type mechanism Active suspension |
| Speed | 6 km/h |
| Max.Acceleration | 2 m/s2 |
| Degrees of freedom | 25 points |
| Power | Li-ion battery (approx. 1.5 hour operation/full charge) |
| Communication | 14 channel; distant voice recognition using microphone array |
| Environment recognition | Map generation and localization using a scanning range finder |
EMIEW2 incorporates new technology not included in its predecessor EMIEW. The new technology developed was conducted as part of the "Project for the Practical Application of Next-Generation Robots," commissioned by the independent administrative agency, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan.
