Theme “Symbiotic Relation between Animal, Human, and Robotics”
For the second event, we invited 4 guest speakers from different fields. From the biology field, Madoka Hattori working on research related to cats and humans in Azabu University Animal Science and Biotechnology Department after her career as an editor for magazines and web media “ilove.cat”. From the front-line of the robotics field, Takashi Sagisaka, Chief Technology Officer of Yukai Engineering Inc., that designed the tail movement of cushion-shaped Therapy Robot “Qoobo” winning high esteem both in and out of Japan, and Junichi Nabeshima, creator of artificial biomimicry-inspired anthropomorphic tail “Arque”. And from the robot production field, Mika Nagae, product manager of Sony, working on projects of “aibo” — the leading authority on symbiotic relation between robots and human.
From the standpoint of their speciality fields, the panel session started by introducing their works, front-line research involving animals and robotics, and the current status of product management. As the session progressed, the topic turned to what would be realized through technology development in the future and expanding the theme to “symbiosis between animals, humans, and robotics”, lecture on their ideal future vision was given.

This day’s report on the fabcafeMTRL web site

fabcafeMTRL website