SPACE ROBOTS
THE DIMINUTIVE JAPANESE COMMUNICATION ROBOT KIROBO WILL TO JOIN THE CREW ABOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION THIS SUMMER. RECENTLY THE ROBOT UNDERWENT ZERO-GRAVITY TESTING ABOARD THE "VOMIT COMET."Anew companion will soon be on its way to join Robonaut 2 aboard the International Space Station. The Japanese communication robot KIROBO will to join the crew aboard the ISS this summer.
Recently KIBO underwent some zero gravity testing. The KIBO Robot Project, organized by Dentsu Inc. in response to a proposal made by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, unveiled the final design of its small humanoid robot and its Earthbound counterpart.
The robot is based on a commercially-available kit called Robi that stands 13.4 inches (34 cm) tall and weighs 2.2 pounds (1 kg). Toyota contributed natural language processing technology, allowing the Kobi robot to understand Japanese speech. It responds using a synthesized voice, and is equipped with a camera that can perform facial recognition.
KOBIs primary duty will be to entertain Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will receive encouraging tweets from Earth through the robot.
