Building the Linux of the Robot World

A small group of Japanese researchers are hoping to emulate the success of the open source movement and what it has done for the Linux operating system in the world of humanoid robots.

The researchers, part of the Japanese government-funded Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project, have been working for the last three and a half years on the development of a humanoid robot named 'Pino'. The robot is named for Pinocchio--the wooden doll in a classic children's tale that tried to become human--and shares his namesake's long nose. The project is named for its leader, Hiroaki Kitano, an expert in artificial intelligence.

Now, with the project approaching its final year of initial funding and the robot largely complete, the group is publishing full technical details of Pino, both software and hardware, on the Internet in the hope that it will spur further development.

Working Together

"With Open Pino, hopefully we will be the Linux of robots," says Yukiko Matsuoka, a member of the project team, of the open source initiative that began in late 2001. "We hope that universities and research laboratories will build on our work and, just like Linux, any development must be provided back to the Open Pino community."

Since first publishing details on the Internet, the team has received enquiries from more than 6,000 people and has begun selling kits of parts needed to build Pino. At $7,500 per kit, most people would not class them as cheap but the team is proud of the price.

"It's about the price of a small car," Matsuoka said. "When we began the project, we had three keywords. The first was to build a cheap humanoid robot without special parts but just normal parts that can be found in Akihabara," she says, referring to Tokyo's electronics district.

Selling Price

In fact, when Sony unveiled its latest humanoid robot last week, the SDR-4X, Toshitada Doi, the head of Sony's robot division, said he expected the SDR-4X would cost about the same as a luxury car when Sony puts it on sale later year.

Selling the Pino kits to consumers would entail compliance with various safety regulations and so at present they are only available to universities and researchers although the team hopes to produce a cut down version, a Pino-lite, later this year and sell that to individuals.

The other key objectives of the project was a human interface and appearance that would be attractive and non-threatening to people and the development of robotic control systems including an artificial intelligence-based self-learning system. Matsuoka says the team has succeeded on both those fronts. The group already has a functioning model and is now concentrating on developing the software systems, especially the artificial intelligence, she says.

Pino has even found fame. It played a starring role in a music video by Hikaru Utada, one of Japan's most popular female pop singers, and its cute design and long nose are now well known to many people. With the publishing of full specifications, the group hopes researchers will pick up the information and develop successors that will eventually be even better known.