Cost oriented humanoid robots

Abstract

Currently there are three categories of humanoid robots available: Professional humanoid robots developed by large companies with a huge amount of research resources. They are expensive and not available on the market. Research humanoid robots: The robots in this category are usually prototypes developed by scientists to implement and test new ideas. Humanoid "Toy" robots: There are a lot of humanoid toy robots, mostly developed by small or medium sized companies, available on the market. Usually they have extremely limited capabilities in hard- as well as in software. Because of these facts in this paper a new fourth category - cost oriented humanoid robots (COHR) are introduced. These robots will be able to support humans in everyday life e.g on the working place, in the household, in leisure and entertainment, and should be available on the market for a reasonable price. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.