New Interface for Mobile Robots

Associate Professor Takafumi Matsumaru at the Bio-Robotics & Human-Mechatronics Lab at Shizuoka University has come up with a new way to control mobile robots. He is envisioning cases in which elderly people can use their walking sticks to guide their mobile companions or uses where manual input of commands are not possible. He calls it the "Step-On Interface (SOI)." A video is worth a thousand words.....

Dr. Matsumaru (shown left) spent 12 years at Toshiba developing robots before he joined the faculty at Shizuoka University.