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HOME / INVEST OSAKA / Robot technology
Robot technology
00 Next-Generation Robots Created by Kansai-based RT-focused Companies and Research Institutes
01 Prologue Osaka : Developmental Hub for Next-Generation Robots
02 Kansai Region : the Largest Market for Next-Generation Robots
03 Kansai :Peerless Concentration of Next-Generation Robot Research, Development and Production Capabilities
04 Expanding Support Systems for Industry-Academia-Government Partnerships in the Next-Generation RT Industry
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A Message from Professor Minoru Asada - OSAKA is Becoming a Center for RT!
Professor Minoru Asada

Minoru Asada
Professor of Pioneering Integrated Engineering, Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University

Dr. Asada is known as one of the founders of RoboCup. Completing his term as President of the RoboCup Federation in 2008, he is currently President of RoboCup Federation, Japan.
He has also held directorship positions in the Robotics Society of Japan and the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence.		 Information communication robot technology (ICRT) is a general term for elemental and integration technologies related telecommunications, media, and robots. Although it is a collection of technologies derived from the Internet, media, and robots, there is no need to limit the concept to robot and information technologies to the narrow sense of the terms. Robots are intelligent manmade artifacts that coexist with humans in a broad sense. No single company, no matter its size, is capable of handling all the processes involved in developing, marketing, and selling these intelligent artifacts. In this sense, the ICRT industry is currently at the stage of creating an entirely new market, and the need to bring together various seed technologies presents a wealth of opportunities for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given its status as a center for specialized SMEs with advanced technologies, I believe Osaka is an ideal base for the ICRT industry.

In 2005, Osaka hosted the RoboCup World Championship, an international project designed to promote the fusion and development of robotics engineering and artificial intelligence. Attracting 181,540 participants from 31 countries, it focused attention of the global robotics industry on Osaka. Team Osaka, the region’s robotics “dream team,” won the Humanoid League prize with a humanoid robot that they have continuously refined for years. The 2008 event marked the team’s fifth consecutive Best Humanoid Award win (starting with the eighth RoboCup World Championship), a remarkable illustration of Osaka’s technological prowess. In 2006, Osaka made a successful bid to house the administrative offices of the RoboCup Federation, which maintains a network of 4,000 researchers at universities and research institutes in 40 countries. Osaka has begun to attract worldwide attention as an advanced robot technology (RT) industry center.

Furthermore, the RoboCity CoRE (Center of RT Experiments) project, developed as an urban proving site to broaden the concepts of robotics engineering and artificial intelligence, will be built in the Knowledge Capital Zone in the Osaka Kita-Umeda redevelopment area in 2012. Robotics researchers at Osaka University will spearhead cooperation between academia and industry in order to develop facilities for exhibiting robots in a people-friendly manner. The goal is to enable visitors to experience robotics engineering and artificial intelligence.
Last fiscal year, the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), whose robotics engineering program is among the best in the United States, opened its Osaka school with a view to full-scale operations in the Knowledge Capital Zone. opportunity to promote Osaka as a center of the ICRT industry and step up corporate activities, and I am convinced that cooperation and collaboration between domestic and international ICRT-related companies will help Osaka's ICRT industry to mature, paving the way for people worldwide to enjoy richer, more fulfilling lives in the future.

It is my fervent hope that Osaka will come to serve as a new business hub for a large number of ICRT-related companies, and I look forward to meeting with you, some of the people who will make that potential a reality.