Robotic Cheer Girls Roll Into Real World

When it comes to robots, the Japanese have got it right since ages. They are the pioneers of everything that time has dominated in terms of technology. Just as the world gets used to their last pioneering effort in this field, the constantly-innovating Japanese brains go and throw in another big surprise!

This time around, Japanese company Murata Manufacturing Co has rolled out a team of super-cute cheerleading robots carefully balancing themselves on a rolling ball each. Forget the leggy lasses who prance about with their cheerleading moves, these robo-cheerleaders are sure to make heads turn more than once—despite their glowing eye sockets and infrared balls attached to the end of their arms.

For once, when they arrive on the ground to cheer up a playing team, they are sure to make their presence more interesting than the game that’s being played on the ground.

Keeping them upright with super efficient software, pairing multiple sensors with two towers on each, to project a combination of ultrasonic and infrared signals is no mean game. Having the basic principle of sound and light travelling at different speed, the robots have been designed to detect the difference in signal timing. The five mics and four sensors hidden underneath the Cheerleader’s microphone which is concealed as a sponge wig, the difference in signal timing would be processed as the distance.

So, when a cheerleading robogirl stumbles, the software will kick into action to perch her right back up; and also tells the other robogirls to steer clear of her! How magnificent and graceful is that! The control system was developed in collaboration with Kyoto University. What provided the baseline data? Nature, of course! The precise synchronicity, with which the birds fly and ants move about gathering their food and transporting it, was an inspiring thing to embed into these robogirls, who will never collide with each other even at the peak of their activity.

Dubbed as the Murata Cheerleaders, this team of robo cheer girls was unveiled at the industrial exhibition held few months ago, in Tokyo. These robo girls have sure caught the attention of the market, and pushed the brand name Murata notches up.

This technology is being hailed as the ground-breaking one for its precision. Cheering robogirls apart, this can also be used in rescue operations at sites which could be inaccessible to humans.
Image: reuters.com