The JST, Japan’s Science and Technology Agency, announced [JP] the development of M3-neony (pictured above) and M3-synchy today, two advanced baby-like robots. While “neony” (derived from “neonate”) is intentionally designed to look like a newborn, “snychy” just stands for “synchronous communication” (but as you can see, he looks like a baby, too). The M3 stands for “Man-Made Man”.
M3-neony is developed to mimic the behavior of a human baby. The JST says the robot is able to move certain “muscles” randomly, just like a newborn who is learning how to move does. It’s supposed to serve as a research object for scientists who want to explore this process.
Needless to say, M3-neony has the body of a baby, too, as he weighs 3.5kg and is 50cm tall. The robot features 90 touch sensors, 22 motors, two CMOS 3.3MP cameras, two microphones, three acceleration sensors, and two gyro sensors.
M3-synchy (pictured above), on the other hand, is mainly designed to communicate either with other robots (seriously) or with humans. The JST says synchy is supposed to help scienctists understand the intricacies of verbal and non-verbal communication, especially how humans turn their look or look into each other’s eyes when discussing.
The robot stands 30cm tall and weighs 2.5kg. Synchy has a CCD camera with 3.3MP and a wide-angle lens in its head. Other features include 2 microphones, speakers, 15 LEDs (that make the robot’s face blush in certain situations) and a face and voice recognition function for other robots and humans.
Via Sankei Kansai [JP]