Sony continues to develop robots after 12 years of interruption, starting with pet robots

12 years after disrupting the robot business, Sony will re-launch next spring with a family robot, a robot shaped like a dog.

The Nikkei newspaper said the company is currently forming a robot development team, who in the group had previously been involved in Aibo, a pet robot that has been noticed for years.

Sony is emerging after a long period of restructuring, but has yet to create new value products. However, the company hopes to compete with US IT rivals, which have preceded Sony in artificial intelligence, by taking advantage of technical expertise.

Sony's first attack will be a pet robot, like a real dog, controlling home appliances with voice commands. It will be similar to the smart speaker equipped with AI connection and internet connection, shaped like a dog.

Sony intends to produce an exclusive operating system on an open platform, allowing external developers to add features. In addition, the technology will allow robots to mimic the actions of a dog.

Indoor robots are a Sony strategy.

Indoor robots are a Sony strategy. Sony President and CEO Kazuo Hirai predicted in June 2014 that the company could develop industrial robots, as in automated factories. However, since then, the industrial robot market seems too high and forces Sony to compete with many big competitors that have a high market share. Sony feels they have a better chance of success in the home robot segment.

Japan is the world's leading market for industrial robots, led by Yaskawa Electric and Fanuc with assembled and welded robots. Many universities, from leading national institutions such as Tokyo University and Tokyo Institute of Technology to medium-sized private organizations, have mechanical engineering departments specializing in providing personnel for the robotics industry. Japan.

From 1990 to 2000, Japanese manufacturers raced to develop robots, aimed at supporting people at home. One of the notable success stories is Asimo, the robot that Honda Motor launched in 2000. Asimo can walk smoothly, jump on two legs, shake hands, use it in households and in factories. Nuclear.

Sony came to Aibo in 1999. Toyota Motor also produced a bipedal robot in 2004 that could play trumpet. This information is high and brings high hope that robots will soon integrate into society. But the development of robots in Japan soon went down, partly because of the lack of strong artificial intelligence, making the robot's ability to be limited. All make the robot commercialization process hindered.

Sony's robot development activity was also affected after the dot-com bubble explosion took place in 2000. Japanese manufacturers were later hurt by the 2008 global financial crisis and the dynamic battle. 2011 earth and tsunami in Japan.

In 2016, Howard Stringer, Sony CEO at that time, stopped the Aibo program. Nearly 200 members of the program were redundant and moved to other departments, including the PlayStation game and digital cameras. Satoshi Amagai, head of the Aibo robot department, left Sony and started Mofiria, a startup that develops biometric authentication technology that identifies blood vessels in fingers.

Sony also had a team that developed a car-like one-seat robot, but the company sold that group and transferred intellectual property to Toyota.

AI technology is a kick for the robot industry.

Although the Japanese robot development industry is still stagnant, the development of AI is rising. AI technology is a kick for the robot industry. US tech giants like Appel and Google are investing heavily and recruiting talents around the world to develop AI. Both companies are now introducing smart speakers, using AI technology to automatically make decisions. Technology running in these speaker products is expected to integrate into robots.

Japanese manufacturers, despite being slow in the AI, are once again focusing on the robot industry, considering it a winning strategy if combined with outstanding skills in their mechanical industry.

Recently, Toyota introduced a nurse-care robotic prototype that it is developing with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone in the Ceatec Japan. NTT's rival, SoftBank Group, in June announced it was acquiring Alphabet's two robot startups, Google's parent company.

Meanwhile, Sony is gathering engineers who have worked on Aibo projects, including expert AI Masashiro Fujita. By combining its power in mechanical engineering and AI, Sony has come a long way since the time of Aibo, the company hopes to expand the robot business, not just just controlling electricity. Household death.

Sony has developed its own AI, but lacking the huge amount of data needed to be feasible compared to Google and Amazon.com, the two US firms have huge data stores that are collected through live platforms. their route. In a high-level meeting in August, executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer Kenichiro Yoshida said the company "could no longer compete in the same field with them", when referring to the two giants. of America.

Atsuo Takanishi, a professor at Waseda University, said: "Japanese manufacturers can regain their strength by developing robots, using advanced technologies such as cloud computing and AI".