  Top Greetings from the Director
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Project Overview WABOT-HOUSE Laboratory has two main assignments. (1)Research on robot community: the symbiotic society where robots and human beings share the same sphere of living embraced by the natural environment. (Research on robot city) What will happen, when robots begin to live together closely with us in daily life? From such a point of view, we set our first purpose to develop a planning theory about social technology and system in symbiosis with robots. We assume at first families, homes and communities in which robots are living together in harmony. Then, we find out robot technologies, which are needed to adjust the present human society into a future life with robots. To realize these views, we research comprehensively collaborating with researchers specialized in different fields. It is a special characteristic of this project. Not only concentrating on robot technology itself, but also researching on communications among human beings, the nature, architecture and robots, and also among robots themselves. Our project tries to develop a complete system, in which the robot technology contributes to the social welfare and communities etc. You may say that our project is to create a sphere with robots and human beings together; in other words, to create a “Robot City”. As the symbol of the project, we are constructing the WABOT-HOUSE Laboratory. This Laboratory is a building complex with 3 blocks under the concept of “the house of the robots, by the robots, for the robots”. These will be a space for robots, a space for symbiosis between humans and robots, and a space for humankind, monitoring and controlling them. (2)Research on coordination theories to develop a new regional robotics industry We aim to achieve the contribution to the society, revitalizing the local economy through technology transfer, and to offer our robot technology for practical use. We are studying on coordination theories. Those activities shall realize a new robotics industry. In this research we grasp the actual conditions and the needs by discussion with users. In addition, we foster experts to convert these seeds technologies into actual needs. 
For example, we modularize element technologies (sensors, actuators, controllers, and mechanical/structural components), which we have developed in the Humanoid Robotics Institute, Waseda University and we are considering how to use these technologies widely in industrial sector. We are also studying the component industry to serve the robotics industry as a backbone, which shall become a huge market in the future. We are now studying new methods to introduce robot technology widely to the local manufacturing industries. In order to function as an incubator of new industries, the Laboratory is supposed to make a solid line of communication between researchers and manufacturers. For this, we are studying interfaces between robot and information technology. |