It’s no secret Japan is betting high on robots to tackle future health care problems in its rapidly graying society. But robots sitting in wheelchairs is an entirely new idea, as just demonstrated at ROBOTECH 2010 in Tokyo.

The humanoid you can see on the picture is called Great King Kizer [JP], and he’s controlling a wheelchair developed by Saitama University’s Center of Human Robot Interaction. I can only guess, but the purpose of the demo might be to show that the wheelchair is so easy to use that even a robot can control it.

Via NODE [JP]