TOSY on the way attend IREX 2009

On November 18, 2009 – TOSY has sent TOPIO 3.0 and its latest models of industrial robots to the International Robot Exhibition (IREX 2009) - The world's largest robot exhibition. IREX is held from November 25 to November 28, 2009, at the international exhibition center, Tokyo Big Sight, Japan.

TOSY is participating in IREX for the 2nd time with a display booth of 300m2 - one of the four largest booths among the approximately 300 companies and organizations exhibiting.

The industrial robots include two Arm Robots (with 6 degrees of freedom), which are multipurpose machines intended to replace human workers in functions such as: welding, painting, assembly, packing, moving materials and loading pallets etc,… In addition, one Scara Robot (with 4 degrees of freedom) and one Parallel Robot (with 3 degrees of freedom) are high speed robots specially designed to pick up objects from fast-moving conveyor belts.

As in past international exhibitions TOSY’s high-tech ambassador in IREX 2009 will be TOPIO. TOPIO has now successfully developed into version 3.0, taking on even more human-like qualities. TOPIO 3.0 has 39 degrees of freedom, stands 1.88 m tall and weighs 120 kg.

At IREX 2009 TOSY will also display many of its successful toy products, including: TOPIO Tiny, TOSY BALL and TOSY UFO. In particular, the latest version of TOSY UFO Returning is stronger than ever and boasts many new features. TOSY UFO Returning 2.0 is enjoying international success and fully satisfies the stringent standards of the toy markets of Japan, America, EU and Australia.

TOPIO at IREX 2007

TOPIO - TOSY Ping-pong Playing Robot

TOPIO’s was designed with the goal of playing ping-pong as a professional player. Developing TOPIO is the first step of TOSY in its plan to bring service robot to every home.

TOPIO at IREX 2007

TOPIO version 1.0 made its debut at IREX 2007 in Tokyo, Japan. This first version of TOPIO, though could just play ping-pong at a basic level, attracted special interest of visitors and the media.

At this version, TOPIO, having a head, 2 arms, 6 legs and 20 degrees of freedom, was made from carbon fiber composite. Its image recognizing system includes 2 high- speed cameras and two powerful computers, enabling it to precisely recognize the ball's spin and trajectory.

Can TOPIO win a human?

Right after the ball has gone 20 cm from the opponent's racket, TOPIO can plan how to best respond through a variety of complicated manipulations such as: recognizing the ball, analyzing the ball's trajectory, predicting the angle when the ball hits the racket and the table as well as choosing the best game tactics... With an artificial neural network, TOPIO is able to review its own performance so as to play better and is expected to beat a professional ping pong player in the near future in a fair competition.

TOPIO in the future

Currently, TOPIO version 3.0 is being developed in such a way that it can move with 2 legs like a human and have more special features. We expect TOPIO to not only be able to beat humans at ping-pong but to participate in many other sports as well, such as athletics, football, martial arts, climbing and swimming, etc. It is TOPIO's biggest target to appear in every home to assist and communicate with humans.