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Daily Video: Vocaloid-Singing, Dancing Robot

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's Humanoid Research Group created the HRP-4C Miimu robot as its newest demonstration of bipedal walking and human-like behavior. The 158-centimeter-tall (about 62-inch-tall), 43-kilogram (95-pound) robot showcased its singing (as provided by Yamaha's Vocaloid vocal synthesis software) and dancing at the Digital Contents Expo 2010, which ran from October 14 to 17 in Tokyo.

Miimu covered Every Little Thing's "Deatta Koro no You ni" song with the CV-4C Beta character voice; the voice actress Eriko Nakamura (Shin Koihime Musō, iDOLM@STER: Live For You!) lent her voice samples for this Vocaloid version. Shinichiro Nakaoka of the Intelligent Systems Research Institute developed the Choreonoid dancing software, and Sam of the musical group TRF choreographed the number that Miimu performed with a group of human backup dancers known as "Miimu Friends."

This is not the first otaku culture tie-in for the Humanoid Research Group; Patlabor mechanical designer Yutaka Izubuchi drafted the external features of the earlier HRP-2 robot . Miimu sang at the CEATEC Japan 2009 exhibition with the voices of Vocaloid characters Hatsune Miku and Megpoid. (Megpoid is named after the voice actress who provided the character's vocal sampling data, Macross Frontier's Megumi Nakajima.)

A recording of the performance is also available from the Ustream website.

Source: ITmedia News