Servo - November 2016

IMPRESSIVE STRIDES Claire Lomas, a 36 year old woman who at the time was 16 weeks pregnant, recently completed the Great North Run, the largest half marathon in the world that takes place each September in North East England.

Lomas has also been paralyzed from the chest down since 2007 following a horseback riding accident.

Lomas used an exoskeleton from Re Walk Robotics to help her complete the 13 mile journey over five days. She also had help from her husband, Dan, who was behind her each step of the way. Lomas walked about three miles per day, beating the heat, hills, and injuries throughout the half marathon.

NEW EMIEW DOESN’T STINK Visitors to Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport may find themselves receiving assistance from EMIEW: a 90 cm tall humanoid robot developed by Hitachi.

Showing off its capabilities at a carefully planned demonstration, EMIEW (pronounced like the flightless bird with a similar looking name) guided a traveler to a tourist office while another EMIEW offered a downloadable digital map showing the location of the airport’s souvenir stores.

The wheel-based robot switched effortlessly between English and Japanese (just like the “tourist” in the demonstration, actually), responding accurately and naturally to each inquiry. The whole process did, however, seem a little on the slow side, but since this was a trial run, response times may be speeded up before the bots roll out on a more permanent basis toward the end of the year.

Hitachi has been developing EMIEW since 2005, with the Haneda version the third in the series. The latest model — which has a top speed of 3. 7 mph ( 6 kmh) — features what Hitachi calls a “remote brain” where built-in sensors work with external monitoring technology (think overhead cameras) to give the robot all the information it needs for an appropriate response. The cloud based system also enables multiple EMIEWs to cooperate with each other in a specific space such as an airport. This is not necessarily a good thing for those who fear the robot apocalypse, but could prove useful if you’re looking for a faraway bathroom.

Should a late passenger sprinting to a gate happen to accidentally knock EMIEW over, the bot can cleverly get back on its feet without any human assistance — provided, of course, its electronics weren’t mangled in the fall.