Japan's robot hotel: a dinosaur at reception, a machine for room service
The English-speaking receptionist is a vicious-looking dinosaur, and the one speaking Japanese is a female humanoid with blinking lashes.
“If you want to check in, push one,” the dinosaur says. The visitor still has to punch a button on the desk and type in information on a touch panel screen.
From the front desk to the porter that is an automated trolley taking luggage to the room, this hotel in south-western Japan, aptly called Weird Hotel, is “manned” almost totally by robots to save labour costs.
Hideo Sawada, who runs the hotel as part of an amusement park, insists using robots is not a gimmick but a serious effort to use technology and achieve efficiency. Cont'd...
Featured Product
Elmo Motion Control - The Platinum Line, a new era in servo control
Significantly enhanced servo performance, higher EtherCAT networking precision, richer servo operation capabilities, more feedback options, and certified smart Functional Safety. Elmo's industry-leading Platinum line of servo drives provides faster and more enhanced servo performance with wider bandwidth, higher resolutions, and advanced control for better results. Platinum drives offer precise EtherCAT networking, faster cycling, high synchronization, negligible jitters, and near-zero latency. They are fully synchronized to the servo loops and feature-rich feedback support, up to three feedbacks simultaneously (with two absolute encoders working simultaneously). The Platinum Line includes one of the world's smallest Functional Safety, and FSoE-certified servo drives with unique SIL capabilities.
