–Toward Promoting the Commercialization of Personal Robots–

1.1 The birth year of Astro Boy In 2003, a variety of events were held across Japan to celebrate Astro Boy’s birthday, which falls on April 7th in the famous comics featuring the robot hero. Similar enthusiasm was seen in “ROBODEX (Robot Dream Exposition),” the world’s largest-scale exhibition of partner robots. Showcasing about 80 models of human-friendly robots, the four-day event attracted nearly 70,000 visitors. Through its history of three shows, ROBODEX has seen steady growth year after year in the number of presenters, many of which are private corporations and universities (Figure 1). One of the demonstrations in ROBODEX 2003 featured a humanoid biped walking robot which, if it loses balance by external forces from different directions and falls, can execute a break-fall to reduce the impact of the crash and then stand up without help. Another exhibitor presented a robot that can serve as a home guard during the owner’s absence with its capability of memorizing the contours of human faces, identifying and recognizing up to about ten persons, and reporting emergencies.