Science and Technology

Japan is one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific research, particularly technology, machinery and biomedical research. Nearly 700,000 researchers share a US$130 billion research and development budget, the third largest in the world. Japan is a world leader in fundamental scientific research, having produced fifteen Nobel laureates in either physics, chemistry or medicine, three Fields medalists and one Gauss Prize laureate.

Some of Japan's more prominent technological contributions are found in the fields of electronics, automobiles, machinery, earthquake engineering, industrial robotics, optics, chemicals, semiconductors and metals. Japan leads the world in robotics production and use, possessing more than half (402,200 of 742,500) of the world's industrial robots used for manufacturing. It also produced QRIO, ASIMO and AIBO. Japan is the world's largest producer of automobiles and home to four of the world's fifteen largest automobile manufacturers and seven of the world's twenty largest semiconductor sales leaders as of today.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is Japan's space agency that conducts space and planetary research, aviation research, and development of rockets and satellites. It is a participant in the International Space Station and the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo) was added to the International Space Station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2008. It has plans in space exploration, such as launching the Venus Climate Orbiter (PLANET-C) in 2010, developing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter to be launched in 2013, and building a moonbase by 2030.

On September 14, 2007, it launched lunar orbit explorer "SELENE" (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) on an H-IIA (Model H2A2022) carrier rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE is also known as Kaguya, the lunar princess of the ancient folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Kaguya is the largest lunar probe mission since the Apollo program. Its mission is to gather data on the moon's origin and evolution. It entered into a lunar orbit on October 4, flying in a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km (62 mi).

Honda ASIMO

ASIMO is a humanoid robot created by Honda. Standing at 130 centimeters (4 feet 3 inches) and weighing 54 kilograms (114 pounds), the robot resembles a small astronaut wearing a backpack and can walk or run on two feet at speeds up to 6 km/h (3.7 mph), matching EMIEW.

ASIMO was created at Honda's Research & Development Wako Fundamental Technical Research Center in Japan. It is the current model in a line of twelve that began in 1986 with E0. ASIMO resembles a child in size and is the most human-like robot HONDA has made so far. The robot has 7 DOF (Degrees of freedom) in each arm — two joints of 3 DOF, shoulder and wrist, giving "Six degrees of freedom" and 1 DOF at the elbow; 6 DOF in each leg — 3 DOF at the crotch, 2 DOF at the ankle and 1 DOF at the knee; and 3 DOF in the neck joint. The hands have 2 DOF — 1 DOF in each thumb and 1 in each finger. This gives a total of 34 DOF in all joints.

The name is an acronym for "Advanced Step in Innovative MObility". Online magazine The Future Of Things (TFOT) states that Honda did not name the robot in reference to science fiction writer and inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics, Isaac Asimov.^[3] The name ASIMO is also a pun meaning “feet, too”. アシ (ashi) is commonly translated as “feet” but can also refer to the lower leg from the knee down and モ (mo) is a particle meaning “also” or “too”, thus ASIMO (アシモ ashimo) roughly translated can mean “it has feet, too” as is appropriate for a robot with legs. The transliteration of アシモ as “asimo” uses the Kunrei system of romanization rather than the more familiar Hepburn system of romanization which renders it as “ashimo”. In both cases it should be pronounced “ah she mow” to match the original Japanese pronunciation.