It’s been a long while since we first saw Honda’s exoskeleton-like Walking Assist Device – 2008, in fact – but the first 100 units are finally strolling into broader service in Japan. 100 of the 2.6kg gadgets, which strap onto the legs and hips so as to help the wearer walk more steadily and with a longer stride, have been deployed as part of a loan program across Japanese hospitals.
In total, fifty hospitals will get to try out the Walking Assist Device, with each location getting two units: one medium (for hip widths of up to 340mm) and one large (for hip widths of up to 380mm). Each unit can run for more than an hour on a single charge, Honda says, with the 22.2V Li-Ion battery fitting into the control pack that sits at the small of the back.
Honda suggests the gadget can be useful for both indoor or outdoor walking, though it cautions against using the walker in the rain and on non-flat surfaces. So far, it’s been trialled on a small scale in seven different hospitals, where physiotherapists and doctors have apparently given the system a tentative thumbs-up.
Although it lacks the immediate geek-appeal of Honda’s ASIMO robot, the Walking Assist Device shares a big part of the robot’s intelligence. Both are based on the company’s studies into walking styles; in the case of the exoskeleton, a bevy of sensors are used to track hip-angles, and thus make sure the motors kick in as appropriate to help guide each step.
It’s not Honda’s only unusual transportation system we’ve seen over the past few years. Although the company is best known for its cars, it also keeps plugging away at more personal methods of getting around, including oddball designs like the UNI-CUB unicycle and the moto compo folding scooter.
Honda is finally letting its Walking Assist devices out of the laboratory and onto the legs of those who need them. The car maker is leasing 50 pairs (in medium and large sizes) out to hospitals in Japan that provide physical rehabilitation and therapy to people with lower limb disabilities. The project aims to test the usefulness of the exoskeletons and improve them through real-world feedback, hopefully on the way to wider availability in the future.
Honda’s reinvention of the NSX, due to return to roads in 2015, will see the hybrid sportscar produced in an equally high-tech $70m US facility, the car company has confirmed. The new Ohio plant – dubbed the Performance Manufacturing Center – will be a boutique arrangement, employing around 100 specifically-skilled experts and sited at the heart of Honda’s R&D facility, as the car is finessed from the NSX Concept shown off in January to a highway-ready racer.
The US production base is a coup for Honda USA, with the last NSX – production of which ceased in 2005 – made in Japan. The new site is Honda’s former North American Logistics facility, while the powertrain will be assembled nearby, at the company’s engine plant in Anna.
“This new plant will be as unique as the vehicle we will build here,” Clement D’Souza, Honda of America’s associate chief engineer, said of the renovation plans. “In creating the plan for this plant, we looked closely at each process and determined the perfect blend of associate craftsmanship and technology to adopt a new approach to manufacturing.”
Unlike the gas-only engine of the original NSX, the 2015 model will combine a traditional, mid-mounted 3.5L V6 with a new Sport Hybrid SH-AWD system. The latter, a progression of the Sport Handling SH-AWD system first launched in 2004, will include three electric motors in total: one 30 kW motor hooked up to the V6, and one 20kW motor for each rear wheel.
The two motors at the rear will be able to operate independently, sending torque to the outside wheel in a turn for improved grip; the motor on the inside wheel will switch into regeneration mode, with the power being fed back into the NSX’s lithium-ion batteries, while the drag produced will also help with grip. As for the third motor, that can be separately operated to run the front wheels, or linked up to the V6 to act as a generator and recharge the batteries as well as simultaneously drive the rear wheels.
Inside, meanwhile, will be a cocooning hub of leather and metal, if the NSX Concept is anything to go by. “We have a very clear understanding of the high customer expectations luxury buyers around the world have for a supercar,” Honda R&D Americas chief engineer Ted Klaus, who will lead the 2015 NSX project, says, “and our challenge is to exceed them.”
Mass production will kick off in 2015, though Honda is yet to confirm pricing, power, performance, or specific availability of the new NSX. However, it will be offered both in North American and globally.
Everyday Robots, the Ones That Have Forever Been Coming… They Might Actually Get Here? Well, in Japan, anyway. Two massive companies and one or two government agencies have assembled some intriguing and aggressive robot launchpad situations, and the game might be changing from “what the distant future will bring” to “what’s going to be in place in 3 years.”
Before jumping into to why things are different this time, it’s important to be fair to those less enthusiastic or perhaps bitterly incredulous about such claims. Wild projections and plans for robotic life accessories, robotic nurses, doctors, cops, soldiers, and perhaps even friends & lovers have long been subject to entirely reasonable criticism and dismissal. Very rightfully so, because all the amazing robots of the future have been kinda perpetually just that; of the future.
It’s easy to discredit theories and hopes and what-ifs, but it gets tricky when non-intuitive collaborations arise and money starts flowing in from both the private sector and the government. As it often does with the robots, Japan’s recently taken a few big steps:
First, global automotive & industrial powerhouse Honda announced a new robotics-related development partnership with Japanese construction & real estate giant Sekisui House. Honda makes three assistive robots: UNI-CUB, a rolly self-balancing chair-bot, and the mobility-assistive robots Bodyweight Support Assist and Stride Management Assist (more energy put into engineering than naming, but forgivable – previous coverage here). Teaming up with Sekisui House looks to be an avenue for Honda to sort of insert its robots beyond demos and gimmickry and directly into homes – homes ergonomically designed with humans and their robotic appliances & amenities in mind.
For its part, Sekisui House appears to have recognized robotics’ imminent matriculation beyond hope & theory into practical, pressing consideration – followed by implementation. It’s telling that a company with no real vested interest in robots yet an obvious and fundamental interest in profit wants to get dialed into Honda’s stuff early and often.
Second, item #2 in the big developments department is that, just days ago, the Japanese government detailed plans to begin large-scale funding for assistive robotics research and development in conjunction with consumer-end subsidies for the consumption of robot-based healthcare. Important here is that it’s not projected funding for some vague, far-off day to be decided after the completion of a survey or study or what have you, it’s funding for this fiscal year. To move forward in incorporating practical robots into human healthcare, alongside the R&D push are initiatives aimed at revising insurance codes to cover assistive robotic devices and/or services for the elderly or disabled.
For the R&D part, the government initiative calls specifically for the following: • A motorized robot suit that can assist in lifting or moving elderly and otherwise impaired patients. • An ambulatory robot that can help the elderly and others walk by themselves, even on inclines. • A portable, self-cleaning robot toilet that can be placed in living rooms or bedrooms. • A monitoring robot that can track the movements and whereabouts of dementia patients.
Conveniently, we once again see Honda’s options for early adopters:
And with a little careful market positioning and some decent design, Sekisui House will have just the place to put them.
The Why: an Unstoppable Force Meets a Fleet of Robots Readers interested in the big breakdown of Why Japan? and Why Now? should leap on over to our March 2013 piece and get hip to what translates pretty directly as The Nation-Wide Existential Really Kinda Big-Deal Population Problem: “Dear Assistive Robot Industry, We Need You! Sincerely, Rapidly Aging Japan.”
The very basic recipe for Japan’s motivation toward developing robot labor breaks down like this: 1. The affluent children of two post-war baby-boom generations have for several decades been increasingly unmotivated toward the baby making, 2. the resulting birthrate in Japan has dropped far lower than 2.0 (which would be a replacement set for the two parents, i.e., population equilibrium), 3. Around 98.5% of Japan’s 130 million or so humans are ethnically and racially Japanese, and to put it gently, foreign residents aren’t so likely to be asked how long they hope to stay, but when they’re going home. That is to say, it’s unlikely that an immigrant labor force will be allowed or would want to take care of: 4. Nearly 40% of Japan’s population is 55 or older.
Therefore: robots.
It’s Worth Believing This Time: In Japan, and really anywhere in the world, the pop-culture image of robotics and their capabilities is served up in sci-fi fantasy. As such, the reality can be a bit deflating, and one cannot really fault the average citizen for feeling that the promise of advanced robotics has been a long wait for a train that never arrived – and probably never will.
However, along with nearly every other branch of science, robotics is now subject to the massive leaps in computational capability that’ve put everything technology-related, i.e., the entirety of human civilization, into super-tech overdrive. To the slightly robo-dorkier among us, it’s clear that we’re entering new territory, and the future – the near future, is very bright.
And another way to tell is when seemingly unrelated Japanese companies start aligning robotics initiatives, and rather conservative government agencies start earmarking real robo-cash. This should be very, very interesting.
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Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com and a contributor at the non-profit Robohub.org.
Honda has issued a recall for 43,782 of its 2012-2013 Honda Fit Sport vehicles all across the United States. The recalls has been issued so that the company can upgrade the vehicles’ Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) software. The current software on the 2012-2013 Honda Fits may function improperly, allowing Honda Fits with certain tires to exceed the yaw rates allowed by the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
Honda says that owners of a 2012-2013 Honda Fit can take their vehicles to an authorized Honda dealer to check up on their vehicles. Their software will be updated free of charge. Vehicle owners are expected to receive their recall notifications in the middle of May. Vehicle owners can also visit Honda’s recall website to see if their Honda Fit is affected by the system software issues.
This isn’t the first recall that Honda issued this month. Earlier this month, Honda, alongside Toyota and Nissan, all recalled a total of 3 million vehicles due to a potential airbag issue that causes the airbag to deploy abnormally. The improperly deployed airbags could have resulted in injury and worse, death, if the issues were not fixed. In total, Honda recalled 1.14 million vehicles that could have airbags improperly installed.
In the following week, Honda also issued a recall for around 204,500 of its CR-V, Odyssey, and Acura RDX vehicles due to an issue with their braking system. In temperatures below freezings, those vehicles would allow their drivers to shift even when they aren’t pressing on their brakes. It hasn’t been a good month for Honda so far, but hopefully this Honda Fit recall will be the last recall it will have to make (at least for a while). Be sure to check out our Cars Hub for the latest news on the automotive industry.
Honda has announced plans to recall 204,500 of its CR-V, Odyssey, and Acura RDX vehicles from 2012 and 2013 due to an issue with the braking system. When temperatures drop below freezing, a problem with one component could allow the driver to shift without pressing the brake first, something that hasn’t caused any issues, instead being discovered in an internal investigation.
The numbers break down to 59,000 2012 and 2013 Honda Odyssey minivans, 128,000 2012 and 2013 Honda CR-V SUVs, and 17,500 2013 Acura RDX vehicles. Those with an affected vehicle will have a component in the brake shift interlock system replaced with one that isn’t prone to failure in sub-freezing temperatures. According to Honda, no customers have complained or experiened any injuries from the problem.
Snail-mail notifications will go out to those with one of the affected vehicles some time in the middle of May. Once the notifications begin rolling out, customers will also be able to check if they have one of the models by visiting the respective Honda and Acura “Recalls” website (recalls.honda.com and recalls.acura.com) or by calling the customer hotline and pressing “4″.
This follows a recent recall over faulty airbags by the manufacturer, with the airbags coming from Takata Corporation. The airbags were made from 2000 to 2002, and concerned a problem with the inflators that could cause abnormal inflation when deployed. Toyota and Nissan were also forced to issue recalls over the same airbag problems.
Some of the top automakers in Japan have been embroiled in the middle of major recalls having to do with the airbags in some of the vehicles they produced. Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have all recently issued recalls due to an airbag fault that could lead to improperly inflating airbags in the event of an accident. All three automakers use components for airbags produced by a Japanese manufacturer called Takata Corp.
Takata is a Japanese manufacturer of safety equipment and the defective airbag inflators were manufactured between 2000 and 2002 according to a company spokesman. Toyota has already said that these malfunctioning airbag inflators could cause the airbag to deploy abnormally during an accident. Improperly deployed airbags could lead to injury or possibly even death.
Toyota, Honda, and Nissan combined will be recalling over 3 million vehicles due to the potential airbag issue. This is the largest recall Takata has been involved with since 1995 when automakers using its seatbelt products were forced recall almost 9,000,000 vehicles. Honda also recalled over 430,000 vehicles in 2010 due to a faulty airbag module supplied by the same company.
In this latest recall, Toyota has recalled 1.73 million vehicles around the world, Honda has issued a recall on about 1.1 4 million vehicles, and Nissan says it’s looking at recalling 480,000 vehicles. Mazda has also recalled 45,463 vehicles. Toyota says that the vehicles covered in the recall were equipped with front passenger airbag inflators that may have been assembled with improperly manufactured propellant wafers. The Toyota vehicles covered in the recall include the Corolla and Camry built between November of 2000 and March 2004.
Honda is celebrating the history of its cars over the last 50 years by asking people to vote on their favorite model out of the 208 that have come out over this period of time.
It is a popularity contest for its cars.
Voting can be done from the “Kuruma Zukan (car picture reference book)” after checking the cars’ specs and photos. Those voting for their favorite model will be able to get a rare original wallpaper of that car.
Honda is accepting votes by 11:59PM on July 31.
The picture album is here. It is in Japanese only, but you will be able to look at the pictures, organized by decade and year.
Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, and Ultra Magnus. These are all robot cars from the Transformers franchise rooted in early 1980s Japan. Somewhat disappointingly, here in realityland it looks like Japan’s real robot cars will have names like Nissan, Toyota, Fuji Heavy Industries, Honda, Mazda, and Hitachi.
Assume gravelly cowboy voice: “Hitachibots, transform and roll out!” Yeeaaah… umm, nope.
Okay, sadly Japan’s big automakers aren’t yet churning out sentient, anthropomorphized, purely good or purely evil all-male robot warriors. But they are very hip to developing and deploying practical versions of so-called robot cars in cooperation with domestic government agencies (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism – MLIT), one another, and given their global reach, international partners as well. Domestically, the current aim is to deploy highly autonomous, self-driving cars on freeways within 9-10 years. If the system proves successful, a global brand like Nissan or Toyota would surely find additional markets in other, much larger national freeway systems (ex: the massive national networks of China and the United States).
Concepts and proposals for robotic automobiles have been around for almost 80 years, and functional experimentation has been ongoing since the early 1980s. Actually, when breaking it down by individual features, 0ne can see that cars have been gradually roboticizing for a long time, e.g., power steering, power windows, power mirrors, anti-lock brakes, etc., etc.
So naturally, big J-Auto’s development of self-driving, partially autonomous, and arguably robotic feature sets isn’t novel. The 2003 Toyota Prius (Japan only), for example, was the first car available with a sonar-based Intelligent Parking Assist System (IPAS) wherein the driver operates the brake and the car calculates optimal steering angles for automated parallel parking (this option didn’t make it to the U.S. until 2009). Robotic features aren’t limited to driving, as here with the 2006 Mazda Miata’s Transformer-like power sunroof:
So what else is there with the Japan/robot car special connection situation? Well, geography, as it is so often want to do, must also insert itself into this macro-cultural equation. Insofar as: Japan’s approximately 130 million residents are shoehorned onto a mere 30% of the country’s land area – and not by choice, the other 70% is either too unstable, rugged, or topographically crazy to be inhabited. So, if one imagines all those people in contiguous urbanization on an island nation about the size of the U.S. state of Ohio, or just a bit larger than Portugal, one can appreciate the extreme population density and everyday challenge of very close-quarter driving and parking.
Another big deal for robotic cars here is the very long-term continuous habitation of the habitable areas. See, when one gets off the modern, 1st world-standard, highly developed roadways, in most cases one will quickly find oneself winding through very narrow streets with little if any standardized configuration. Human beings have been living along the same trails-that-became-roads-that-became-streets for many hundreds, if not thousands of years – long before there was much regard for large-scale municipal planning or an even vague anticipation of the motor vehicle. The analog compensation here is that nearly every non-arterial, non-grid-like intersection in Japan has an array of fish-eye mirrors at each corner, and drivers either use them or risk having no idea what’s coming. A networked robotic car, however, would be able to “see” around the corners, which would be nice when navigating this Tokyo neighborhood:
And then there’s the demographics. We mentioned assistive robots’ role in Japan’s aging society a few weeks back; this country has a big-deal labor shortage coming up in a generation and a half or so. In addition to the role robotics will very likely play in augmenting a dwindling human services labor force, a day spent in any Japanese city futilely looking for taxi or bus driver under 45 will clearly reveal another pending labor shortage. Who’s going to fill those jobs in 25 years? Yep.
Japan is approaching a perfect-storm state of necessity for practical robots, and if proven effective, reliable, and safe, increasingly robotic automobiles are likely to get an early foothold here. Besides, piloting a car in Japan is objectively difficult, licensing and compulsory driving schools are quite expensive, and despite its world-class public transportation system, Japan does experience considerable roadway congestion (networked, self-driving cars are anticipated to greatly reduce traffic jams and the effects of human error). Add in safety benefits, a potentially positive environmental impact, and POW: if it can, big J-Auto will put J-robots on the road ASAP.
Japan’s current repertoire doesn’t include anything ready for public consumption, but there are some very advanced and promising projects underway. Nissan’s modified Leaf, introduced last October as the NSC-2015, as in the year 2015, is an ambitious and innovative offering – complete with smartphone connectivity:
Toyota is also keeping pace with the Lexus-branded Advanced Active Safety Research Vehicle that debuted at CES in January:
Bringing things down to the personal, Hitachi recently unveiled their latest version of the Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System – Ropits. This autonomous, obstacle-avoiding, user-friendly personal transport is intended to one day assist the elderly or disabled:
Japan’s MLIT was scheduled to produce an update to their ongoing robo-car feasibility studies by the end of last month. While not yet public, it’s safe to assume that their assessments and directives probably won’t result in big J-Auto’s production of a transforming robot car that will protect you, your family, and the galaxy from those other, eeeevil robots – but within a few decades, it’ll probably be reasonable to expect one’s very own private chauffeur to be… well, basically just software.
For now and the near future, think of robotic cars as you might think of powered robotic exoskeletons, i.e., they’ll help you do what you need to do with greater strength, precision, and efficiency, but they aren’t going to walk out to the driveway and help you up the stairs all by themselves.
The robots are coming, but for now and a while to come, humans are still going to have to push a few buttons. _________
Reno J. Tibke is the founder and operator of Anthrobotic.com and a contributor at the non-profit Robohub.org.
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