Digital creatures for future entertainment robotics

The twenty first century will become an era of autonomous robots which are partners of human beings. Autonomous robots will help and support people in the future. We introduce AIBO, the first product model of robot entertainment systems. The main application of this robot is a pet-style robot, which must be lifelike in appearance. In addition to the pet-style robot issue, which is to promote and to present an example of robot entertainment application, we introduce OPEN-R, which is to accelerate the research and development of autonomous robots. Although AIBO is not a nursing robot, we believe the development of AIBO to be the first step of the era of autonomous robots in the twenty first century