Our planing a product and service for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

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.