Honda's Asimo will retire this Thursday after a 22-year career.
Honda’s charismatic robot Asimo is retiring this week, ending a 22-year career. The child-sized robot made a name for itself some two decades ago when it rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange in 2002, then conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2008 and greeted President Obama when he visited Japan in 2014. Asimo quickly became a symbol of Japan’s pioneering robot technology as it made special guest appearances around the world.
In mid-2018, Honda posted the last update of Asimo through their official website stating that it would be ceasing all development and production of Asimo robots in order to focus of more practical applications of the technology. Since then, the robot has been appearing regularly on stage at Honda’s Tokyo headquarters entertaining kids and parents alike with its clever antics.
The 4 ft 3 in tall 119 lb robot can also walk, talk, run, climb stairs, kick a soccer ball, and pour coffee into a cup. Looking like a mini-astronaut ready for a spacewalk, this humanoid robot also starred in a series of brilliantly conceived TV commercials with kids promoting Honda over a decade ago. Created initially to be a real-life interpretation of the popular animated robot “Astro Boy”, Honda’s Asimo was given life back in 2000.
Short for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, Asimo was the 10th generation of a robot development program that started way back in 1986 when Honda build a two-legged robot that could walk, while tripping up constantly and requiring help from its human minders. Over the years, the company’s robotics advanced as it was able to recognize moving objects, postures, gestures, its surrounding environment, sounds and faces, using facial recognition software. Try to push or pull the Asimo when it offers its hand for a handshake, and the onboard sensors and gyros will instantly adjust the robot’s center of gravity and self-balance, thus resisting a potential fall.
Asimo is powered by a rechargeable 51.8 V lithium-ion battery with an operating time of one hour, the robot has a three-dimensional computer processor which consists of a triple-stacked die, a processor, a signal converter and memory. Last September, Honda announced it would develop an avatar robot with an AI-supported remote-controlled function.
Even after Asimo heads to the robot retirement village in the sky, Honda says it will continue to sell Asimo goods, and in so doing, keeping the pint-sized globetrotter’s name alive.
