A humanoid robot is an autonomous robot with its overall appearance resembling to human being. It must be capable of adapting to changes in its environment and continue to reach its goal. It must have self maintenance system. Its activities in no way should be harmful to human i.e. it must interact safely with human and environment. The most essential difference between humanoid robots and other robots is that the movement of the robot has to be human-like, using legged locomotion so as to minimise the energy required for the locomotion. There must be proper planning and control for automatic obstacle detection, avoiding collisions and proper path selection for motion. Actuators and sensors are two most important and functional parts of a humanoid robot. Actuators are responsible for the motion of the robot while sensors enable it to get information about the environment and perform some special functions. In addition to these structural aspects, the humanoid robot must be able to perform some human tasks. The practical application of humaniod robots lies mostly in Artificial Intelligence and Research Activities. But, it can also be used to assist human or do on its own the work which may be dengerous for humans but does not harm the robot.
Leonardo da Vinci was the first one to conceive the idea of a humanoid robot which is evident from Leonardo's robot. (a design of humanoid automaton by him that looks like an armored knight) However, the credit of making first humanoid robot in reality goes to Waseda University, Tokyo where WABOT-1, able to communicate in Japanese, was made in 1973. It has gotten better and better after that and Honda has given us well known ASIMO which is able to recognize not only objects and faces, but also different gestures and postures.
The progress made so far in the field of humanoid robots suggests that it is practically possible to design and fabricate a robot for any kind of work. So, let’s wait for the day we all will be having robots as our day-to-day life companion!
