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Utterly ignoring the safety chain attached to the base of its "neck," the Honda P3 confidently walks down a flight of steps in the company lab. More than a decade ago, at the beginning of the Honda project, the research team concluded that their robot would have to be able to walk, rather than simply roll on wheels. Wheeled robots, they decided, just couldn't function in a contemporary home full of stairs, toy-strewn floors, thick pile rugs, and other obstacles. Today P3 can walk with impressive smoothness. The only real sign of its robotic nature is the way it begins to walk with a little knee-dip, to compensate for the absence of a pelvis. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 44.

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© 2000 Peter Menzel, www.menzelphoto.com, Robo Sapiens
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Robo sapiens: Japan
Utterly ignoring the safety chain attached to the base of its "neck," the Honda P3 confidently walks down a flight of steps in the company lab. More than a decade ago, at the beginning of the Honda project, the research team concluded that their robot would have to be able to walk, rather than simply roll on wheels. Wheeled robots, they decided, just couldn't function in a contemporary home full of stairs, toy-strewn floors, thick pile rugs, and other obstacles. Today P3 can walk with impressive smoothness. The only real sign of its robotic nature is the way it begins to walk with a little knee-dip, to compensate for the absence of a pelvis. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 44.
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