Tokyo-based start-up Tsubame Industries is developing a four-and-a-half-meter-tall four-wheeled robot that looks like a character from the wildly popular Japanese animated series Gundam, and it can be yours for three million dollars.
Named Archax after the flying dinosaur Archeopteryx, the robot has cockpit monitors that receive images from cameras attached to the outside so the pilot can control the arms and hands using joysticks from inside the torso.
It weighs 3.5 tons and has two modes of operation: upright “robotic” and “driving” with a maximum speed of ten kilometers per hour.
The launch is planned for the Japan Mobility Show this month.
“Japan is very good at animation, games, robots and cars, so I thought it would be great if I could create a product that encapsulates all those elements,” said Ryo Yoshida, the 25-year-old CEO of Tsubame Industries.
“I wanted to create something that said, ‘This is Japan,'” he added.
Yoshida hopes to build and sell five robots to affluent robot fans, but he also hopes the robot could one day be used for disaster relief or in the space industry.
He became interested in robotics at an early age. He learned to weld in his grandfather’s workshop, and then founded a company that produces myoelectric hand prostheses. He says he wants to maintain Japan’s manufacturing competitive advantage.
I hope to learn from previous generations and continue the tradition, he declared.