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maxglute · a year ago
It's still user controlled like a surgical robot but for construction. I'm guessing it's eventually going to be run remotely by a bunch of japanese operators too old to work in the field. Also disappointingly small for "enormous", was hoping for a gundam.
anigbrowl · a year ago
Gotta start somewhere, once the initial bugs are sorted out we can start forcing ambivalent high schoolers into existential crisis situations.
Fire-Dragon-DoL · a year ago
Lol
anotherhue · a year ago
...all's right with the world.
analog31 · a year ago
I think putting it in a reptile suit would not be too much to ask.
core_dumped · a year ago
Eh, the classic Gundam is around 18 m tall. This comes close at 12 m. The upper body and arms certainly invoke mobile suit aesthetics though
maxglute · a year ago
It reaches 12m on a telescoped crane, the actual scale of the robot body looks pretty small, smaller than the cab of the truck. Pretty human scale all things considered, makes one wonder if it's goign to be mounted on treads or legs one day for indoor use. It does look very cool indeed.
jncfhnb · a year ago
Perhaps this can serve as just a single leg of a larger combination though
ThrowawayR2 · a year ago
The AV-98 Ingram from the Patlabor anime is 8 m tall, so I wouldn't count this robot out.
nashashmi · a year ago
By enormous I was expecting something that could lift a rail car.
ocodo · a year ago
Honestly, I thought it would be towering above Docomo Tower.
Fire-Dragon-DoL · a year ago
As if having a big human conttolled robot could never trigger the dreams of many mecha addicts, right?

Lol

Dead Comment

ano-ther · a year ago
Here is a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSJK7vMSLk

Interestingly, humans come very close to it during operation.

dugditches · a year ago
Not much different than everyday on sites everywhere with boom cranes. Which are arguably much more dangerous due to being less dexterous and no video. Notably 1:23 where it's similar to working with a crane.
roughly · a year ago
That looks incredibly cool, and also instantly nausea inducing - I can’t imagine the video feed and the head gyros are fast enough to avoid that little bit of lag and judder that turn VR into a vomit machine.

The feedback on the arm is very cool, though.

gpm · a year ago
FPV drone hardware has commercialized very cheap very low latency video feeds to headsets.

Not with headtracking though. Not sure that's reasonably possible.

PoignardAzur · a year ago
I wonder if it wouldn't be easier / more comfortable for the worker to just get a low-poly reconstructed 3D rendering of the environment. That way at least they could move their head as much as they want and still get a read-time feed in their goggle without the usual VR tricks.
enva2712 · a year ago
Responses so far say to optimize neck latency or use a joystick but why not use a 360 camera and handle it in reprojection. First pass could literally be a gopro or insta360 streaming to the headset and you could eventually integrate cameras and do the stitching yourself. The tech already exists and works, and it removes moving parts and actuators
namibj · a year ago
Why not? There's no need for the neck to have more than 1~5 ms of lag, and about 5~10 ms photon lag even with a framebuffer involved (if you align the rolling shutter of the camera to the row-by-row multiplexed display, say OLED @ 240Hz, you should manage 4~5 ms).
theshackleford · a year ago
> that little bit of lag and judder that turn VR into a vomit machine.

This doesn’t apply to everyone, so it’s just a matter of training people with more tolerance.

fragmede · a year ago
just over so it on the cameras so there isn't a latency because you're not actually moving the giant robot head
omoikane · a year ago
I like how the robot head motion is linked to the operator's head motion, such that the robot is able to nod its head near 2:15. I also like the feedback control near 0:35.
downboots · a year ago
now start collecting user movement data with the visual recordings and we can eventually automate all the things
l1n · a year ago
https://www.jinki.jp/ their website is banger
pineaux · a year ago
This is the most Japan thing I have seen here in a long time. Immediate throwback to all the cool mecha anime stuff...
cellularmitosis · a year ago
I was about to say, isn’t this how the plot of Patlabor starts?
Barrin92 · a year ago
Patlabor is criminally underrated, in particular Patlabor II by Oshii. Often neglected given how popular his other stuff like GitS is but probably one of the best animated films when it comes to post WWII Japan's military/political questions.
cbm-vic-20 · a year ago
It seems that in many cases, Japanese robot designers prefer humanoid form over a more practical design. Watching the video linked by ano-ther, it seems that many of the demonstrated tasks could benefit from cameras that are placed more closely to the tool. Accurately placing parts, inspections, and the tree limb removal tasks are examples of this.
pixl97 · a year ago
Ya it's not a human, you're not limited to binocular vision and can have multiple sets of cameras pretty easily of you wanted. Who knows what the designers are thinking.
fragmede · a year ago
I'm pretty sure they're thinking "giant robots are awesome!"

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rkagerer · a year ago
They weren't kidding about it looking like an awesome 80's robot! Resembles Johnny 5 (from 1988): https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/robotics/images/4/49/Johnn...
jolmg · a year ago
Huh. Robot with denim jacket in Chromium, but placeholder image (mountain and sun icon) in Firefox. Can view in Firefox if cb query param is removed. Weird.
rkagerer · a year ago
Weird, sorry about that queryparam I didn't see it there or would have stripped it.
ASalazarMX · a year ago
I wasn't sure if it was justified, but was instantly sold when it nodded with its little head.
znyboy · a year ago
This particular robot was revealed back in 2022. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190875