Toyota Built a "Robotic Ceiling-Assistant" to Ease the Life of the Elderly

With an aim to ease the daily life of the elderly population, Toyota'due south robotics division at the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has developed a unique robot to handle house chores. We have already seen the company develop a helper robot concluding year. Now, the new Toyota "Ceiling-Banana" will hang from the, of course, ceiling and will be able to make clean dishes and practise other simple business firm chores.

Ane of the reasons the Japan-based automobile-maker was inspired to build the said ceiling robot is the Japanese notion of Ikigai, which means every person'due south life should have meaning and purpose. So, as the global population above the age of 65 is said to double in the next 3 decades, according to the UN, Toyota aims to help this graying population with its robotic technologies.

At present, coming to the ceiling-robot, Toyota says that it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance human abilities. A "human-centered approach turns typical AI philosophy on its caput: instead of replacing human being beings," adds the visitor.

One of the major benefits of the ceiling-banana robot, compared to basis robots, is the management of space in a firm. As it uses the flooring higher up, that is the ceiling of a business firm, the basis remains articulate for the children and the pets to freely roam around. Also, when not needed, users tin easily tuck it away into the ceiling to better manage home space.

The company, equally we know, visualizes a future with smart homes integrated with many different kinds of robots. And then, the company thinks that these new ceiling robots will already be there within the smart homes of future cities. Toyota showcased the robot in an online presentation recently. You can check out the video right here:

Now, although there are a lot of benefits to this new robot, there as well are some major drawbacks. For instance, the visitor uses virtual reality to train the robot. This means a human operator performs the featured actions physically using a VR kit and those movements get stored in the robot's memory. Hence, these ceiling-bots aren't very smart.

Moreover, the fact that every home has a distinct pattern-language, mastering each of the surround of the homes will be a major claiming for the robot.