I surveyed the floor—steel and aluminum and computers— feeling as if I could have been on another planet. Tam, strangely, had said scarcely a word the whole time. She probably knew about a lot of this, but surely not the proprietary, advanced devices.
Noda's glimpse of Japan's industrial "Manhattan Project" was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Although I suspect the devices he let Matsugami show us were just the toys, they still were enough to leave no doubt where things were headed.
Without going into the classified details, let me attempt to describe a few of the items I still remember. I was particularly impressed by the Waseda University/Hitachi walking robot WHL-II, which uses advanced machine technology and computer control to move just as a human does, two-legged style. Its hydraulic steel joints and carbon-fiber muscles, together with its computerized foot sensors, give it walking skills better than most young humans'. Its brain of course is a microprocessor, programmed to let it walk in different styles, just as we do. Other mobile robots had four legs, even six—such as the Titan III, which we saw climb up a set of stairs like a metallic sci-fi spider.
As for robot hands, the most advanced also were from Hitachi's mechanical engineering research lab. Unlike most robot grippers, little more than glorified vises, this one had three fingers (which Matsugami claimed were more agile than a version at MIT) whose "muscles" were a heat-sensitive metal (invented in the U.S.) that would contract when an electric current passed through.
Vision research was also well advanced. A Matsushita robot equipped with a computerized "eye" was able to analyze the lines and shadows of a human face and then draw a black-and- white sketch like a sidewalk artist. Even more amazing, a robot with a TV-camera eye—developed jointly by Waseda University and Sumitomo Electric—could read sheet music and play it on a keyboard using mechanical fingers. This android pianist employed recent advances in artificial intelligence to determine the best fingering for each phrase and even took requests for tunes in spoken Japanese. Play it again, HAL. Other robots with "voice recognition" capability allowed a human operator simply to sit in one spot and command the mobile machine where to go and what to do.
At one point Tam asked Matsugami for a candid opinion on how far along he thought the Advanced Robot-Technology Program had progressed. Well, he replied, sucking in his breath pensively, the manual dexterity problem was about licked: the robot arms now being perfected could pick up anything and move it anywhere. Vision and programmable intelligence were harder, but he felt their research was getting close. Already he had robots that could analyze and interpret 3-D objects and scenes, enabling them to maneuver around a factory floor and make decisions of almost human complexity. The ultimate objective was factory-wide systems for Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) that would allow every operation of a company, from design to engineering to manufacturing, to be controlled by computer via a single data base. It was cheap, and it elevated quality control to a hundred percent. No doubt about it, he said, as Japan moved to automate manufacturing and get on with an information- industry future, these smart robots would be their secret weapon.
The Institute's mechanical menagerie, I realized, was what the next century was going to look like. Except it was here now. As Matsugami took us through lab after lab, it became clear that the Japanese "third-generation" functionoid robot was all but a reality.
Noda's message was clear. Already Japan was spending twice as much on new manufacturing technology as America was. They led the world in robotics and that lead was growing. With the coming of that third generation—robots that could
see, move, and think—world industrial leadership would be up for grabs. These were the stakes Japan was betting on the twenty-first century. Anybody who planned to play against them better have something on the table too.
At the end of the tour as dusk was beginning to settle in, Noda reappeared and escorted us back to the limo. And that's when he laid it out.