HRP-2 performing a Japanese folk routine called Aizu-Bandaisan (Image: Journal of Robotics Research)
Humanoid robots could one day serve as prancing libraries of long-forgotten dance routines – able to reproduce them for curious audiences without a moment’s rehearsal. It’s the latest approach to preserving traditional folk dances as the people skilled in performing them gradually die off.
The idea comes from Shin’ichiro Nakaoka and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo, Japan. They used video motion-capture systems to record the movement of a dancer performing a Japanese folk routine called the Aizu-Bandaisan. They turned this data into a limb-motion sequence for a humanoid robot, the …
