TELENOID
Osaka University and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) have collaboratively developed a new portable teleoperated android robot, “Telenoid R1,” that can effectively transfer peoples’ presence.
Teleoperated android robots in the past, such as Geminoid™ HI-1 (developed by ATR) and Geminoid™ F (developed by Osaka Univ. and ATR) owned appearances similar to actual persons, and were intended to transfer presences of actual persons. The new Telenoid R1 was designed to appear and to behave as a minimalistic human; at the very first glance, one can easily recognize the Telenoid as a human while the Telenoid appear as both male and female, as both old and young. By this minimal design, the Telenoid allows people to feel as if an acquaintance in the distance is next to you. Moreover, Telenoid’s soft and pleasant skin texture and small, child-like body size allows one
The term Telenoid is a new term coined from a prefix Tele-, as Telephone and Teleoperation, and the Latin postfix -oides which indicates similarity, as Humanoid. Using Telenoids, we will investigate the essential elements for representing and transferring humanlike presence. In practical usage, we expect Telenoid to be used as a new communication media,
Features of Telenoid R1 include:
- A novel minimalistic design that can effectively represent human presence
- Soft and pleasant body
- Low cost due to decreased numbers of actuators
(Telenoid R1:9、Geminoid™ HI-1:50、Geminoid™ F:12) - Small-size body and simple internal structure by use of electric (DC) motors
- Easy teleoperation based on the teleoperation technology developed by ATR
| Telenoid R1 | Telenoid R2 | Telenoid R2w | Telenoid R2l | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release | Aug. 2010 | Mar. 2011 | Jan. 2012 | Mar. 2012 |
| Height | Approx. 80cm | Approx.70cm | ||
| Weight | Approx. 5kg | Approx. 3kg | Approx. 4kg | Approx. 2kg |
| Sensor | None | One camera, two microphones, and one posture sensor (3 axes accelerometer and 2 axes gyro) | None | |
| Actuator | Servo motor | |||
| Power | External DC power resource | Battery | External DC power resource | |
| CPU | One microcontroller (ARM7 60Hz) is embedded. An external PC is used for Telenoid control. | |||
| Degree of freedom | 3 for eyeballs, 1 for mouth, 3 for neck, and two for amrs | 1 for mouth, two for neck, and two for arms | ||
| Exterior material | Silicone | Polyvinyl chloride | ||
| Improved point | Downsizing, Adding sensors, Changing exterior material | Wireless connection between Telenoid and external PC | Weight saving | |
Telenoid will be distributed by Eager Co. Ltd.
Development of Telenoid was partially supported by Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research (S), KAKENHI (20220002) [Principal Investigator: Hiroshi Ishiguro (Professor of Osaka University, ATR fellow)]