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Martial arts robots hit Asian tech fair



From the article:

Humanoid robots capable of performing somersaults and complex martial arts moves were demonstrated at Asia's largest electronics and computing fair in Tokyo on Saturday.

Visitors to CEATEC 2003 (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) met Morph3, a human-like robot about 30-centimetres tall developed by researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan. It can perform back flips and karate moves thanks to 138 pressure sensors, 30 different onboard motors and 14 computer processors.

According to Frederic Kaplan, at Sony's robotics laboratory in France, "One of the key things we are looking at now is developmental robotics, where a robot learns."

Right now, we don't have any robots capable of learning and responding to situations with human-like intelligence. But scientists and engineers will eventually solve these problems in one of two possible ways:

• They may brute-force the problem using today's programming technology. So, for example, they will create specialized robotic routines that allow a robot to drive from point A to Point B, or to enter an apartment building and walk to a certain floor and apartment number (See Manna, Chapter 3 for details). As each of these specialized skills is implemented, it will get combined with hundreds of other specialized skills to make a robot that is able to do many human-like things well.
• Or programmers will develop a completely new programming paradigm that allows a robot to learn like a human being does.

Either way, we will have intelligent robots walking and talking among us in 20 or 30 years. Now we can see that these robots will be able to karate-chop and sumo-wrestle their way right through crowds of unruly humans...