What: a guide robot
Tokyo Olympics will be held in 2020. At
that time, of course man not only the athletes of each country, but a lot of
tourists will visit Tokyo. Even now, the number of foreigners is increasing
every year. Whenever we visit the sightseeing spot of Tokyo, there are many
tourists. I think the environment of Tokyo for tourists is very good. For
example, almost all signs in the station are also written in English and
Chinese so that tourists will not to be confused which train should ride. But,
if the number of foreigner increases substantially, maybe the situation would
change. Not only English speakers but many countries’ people will come to
Tokyo. Then, the Tokyo government has to deal with a lot of languages. But of
course it is impossible to make signs written in all languages at the same
time. Then we thought, if there are a guide robot which can speak many
languages, it will be very useful for tourists. Our ideal image of this robot
is just a kind of isolated robot, like “pepper”. It can communicate with
foreigners in many different languages and also can give them a guide, for
example how to get to their destination from where they are or tell them the
history of the sightseeing spot.
Where
Firstly, we should set this robot in the
stations, because the trail way of Tokyo is so confusing for tourists.
Secondly, we can put it in the main sightseeing spot such as Asakusa. Then
tourists can enjoy not only the atmosphere but the history of Asakusa.
When
During the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and after the Olympics.
Why
We have third reasons.
First, robots are more useful than human guides. We think that foreign
people who come to Tokyo first time may get lost their way, because Tokyo is
very complex. If we employ guide who can speak other language, the cost would
become high. However, if we use the guide robots the cost may be lower than
those people. Robots can understand many kind of languages. Moreover differ
from human guide, robot guides can use after the Olympics, so we
think that robots are more useful than human guides.
Second, it will be a good opportunity to show Japanese robot
technology for foreign people. In Japan a lot of robots are developed, but
there are few opportunity to advertise those robots. Therefore we think Tokyo
Olympics will become not only international contest but also the exhibition of
Japanese technology.
Third, robots can make Tokyo Olympics unique.
We feel that recent Olympic game is not different. If robots are used at Tokyo
Olympics, it would become very impressive and unique, so everyone can remember
the event.
How
First,
get a lot of money from t government. In Japan government said that budget for
the robot industry will increase. Therefore we will be able to get a lot of
money, and use for the cost of making robots.
Second, in order to understand many kind of
languages, we import voice recognizer which is similar to smartphone into
robots.
