Human-like robots in the making: Geminoid HI-1

When you wake up in the morning feeling lazy to go to school, but know it's an impossible dream not to do so, because your parents and your teacher will reprimand you if you don't, won't it be nice to have a replica of you self to take your place? Well, imagine how it would be if you had a twin robot, who acts just like you, and even has an identical voice, that you could send to school instead of you?

You'd be over the moon I guess. Well, now, the good news is, such a 'twin robot' could be available in the near future and I'm not joking at all.

Hiroshi Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories and a lecturer at Osaka University, has created a machine in his own image, a robot that looks and moves exactly like him. It sits on a chair and gazes around the room in a very human-like fashion, just like its inventor. In fact, the robot is an exact copy of him.

Ishiguro's silicone and steel doppelgenger was made from casts taken from his own body. Powered by pressurised air and small actuators, it runs on semi-autonomous motion programmes.

It blinks and fidgets about in its seat, moving its feet up and down restlessly and its shoulders rising gently as though it were breathing. These micromovements are so convincing that it's hard to believe that it is a machine. It seems , so very much like a human being wearing a rubber mask perhaps, than a robot.

What's amazing is that it even speaks like a real man, and the voice is that of Ishiguro's. Now, how is that possible you may ask if you happen to see its lips moving? Well, the inventor's recorded voice is broadcast through a speaker inside the robot.

This robot named Geminoid can be operated through a remote. The robot reproduces the voice, posture and lip movements of Ishiguro, who is fitted with a motion-capture system.

Ishiguro says he is now exploring the possibility of sending the Geminoid to lecture his students at the university, so that he could attend to a multitude of other tasks he has to do and ease his life a bit. Now, don't you think that it's an amazing invention?

They have also been able to invent a female robot by copying an image of a TV newscaster. She is named Repliee Q 1 expo. A sophisticated female robot, similar to Geminoid, Repliee can also deceive the onlookers and be mistaken for a real person. We'll bring you the details of this fascinating robot in our next Science page.

Till then, keep dreaming of all the wonderful inventions that's possible with the magic of science. Perhaps you too could dream up your own inventions. Did you succeed in identifying the robot in the picture above? If not, it's the one on the right.

Compiled by Janani Amarasekara