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Since the advent of Honda’s ASIMO and Sony’s AIBO, robot fever has broken out in the general public of Japan. However no significant business has yet materialized, except in the pet robot business in the toy industry. On the other hand serious basic research for humanoid robots is going on which may have an impact on the future of robotics. This report describes the current status of Japanese humanoid fever and its reality.

This paper aims to provide technical details of humanoid robot developments from the 1970s to the present day and to consider their potential applications and prospects.

Following an introduction, this first identifies the motivations for developing humanoid robots. It then provides a technical review of developments conducted between the 1970s and the late 2010s. The most recent developments and their applications are then discussed and the paper concludes with a brief consideration of future prospects.

Since the first efforts to develop humanoid robots in Japan, the 1970s, the technology has attracted global interest and progress has been dramatic. Enabled by developments in computing, imaging, sensing, power sources, actuators and other technologies, today’s humanoid robots are agile, stable and capable of all manner of human-like capabilities such as running, climbing stairs and carrying heavy loads. Real-world uses in fields such as construction, assembly, disaster response and home assistance are expected to emerge in the near future as a result of application-specific developments.

This illustrates the technological evolution of humanoid robots from their inception in the 1970s to the present day.

Humanoid robot has similar shape and action characteristics as humans, and it can complete some basic tasks instead of humans without changing the human environment, which makes humanoid robot become the best structure and help form for robot to provide services for human beings.

The mobile operation control of humanoid robot is generated by the walking movement of humanoid robot's feet, and the robot's hand and arm complete grasping and other operations together.

On the basis of humanoid robot, the integrated system of software and hardware based on the KM34Z256 humanoid robot is described first, and a series of kinematics discussion on its mobile operation is carried out.

The research based on this project shows that the target recognition and positioning method is not only accurate and of high energy but also can realize the mobile operation of humanoid robot.

• Service robots (SRs) in retail is an emerging topic for both scholars and practitioners.

• Most of the studies are performed in the field using observational methods.

• To date, there is a lack of using uniform frameworks in order to fully understand customer–robot interactions.

• The dark side of robots in retail is still an underexplored area.

Service robots (SRs) in retail is an emerging topic for both scholars and practitioners.

Most of the studies are performed in the field using observational methods.

To date, there is a lack of using uniform frameworks in order to fully understand customer–robot interactions.

The dark side of robots in retail is still an underexplored area.

The purpose of this study is to examine how robotic anthropomorphism and personalized design may affect consumers' reactions to brands after service failure.

This study conducted two studies based on cognitive appraisal theory and artificial intelligence device acceptance theory. Study 1 explored the mechanisms by which the type of anthropomorphic design of the service robot (humanoid robot/nonhumanoid robot) influenced revisit intention after service failure through a one-factor between-subjects design based on a restaurant dining scenario. Study 2 was based on a hotel check-in scenario and explored the moderating effect of robot personalization design on the above mechanisms through a 2 (anthropomorphic design: humanoid robot/nonhumanoid robot) × 2 (personalized design: self-name/no name) between-subjects design.

Study 1 shows that consumers have higher performance expectations for nonhumanoid robots, leading to a higher tolerance for service failure, which in turn generates higher revisit intentions. Study 2 shows that consumers' performance expectations are significantly enhanced after custom naming of humanoid robots, so the serial mediation mechanism for the effect of robot anthropomorphic design on revisit intention does not hold.

This study extends the research of artificial intelligence device acceptance theory in the field of service failure and exploratively proposes an intervention mechanism for the negative effects of the anthropomorphic design of service robots.

This paper aims to propose a pulsing type joint servo driver-based obstacle surmounting method for a humanoid robot according to the whole-body dynamics model, which fully takes into account the relationship between the whole-body stability margin and instantaneous torque.

First, the authors designed a new practical instantaneous large torque strategy for a pulsing type joint servo driver by modeling the whole-body dynamics of the humanoid robot. The work also considered joint angle planning based on the dynamic model for crossing obstacles. Second, in the simulation and experimentation, the instantaneous torque of the driver is used to realize successful crossing of obstacles by the humanoid robot. This verifies the correctness of the whole-body dynamics model and the feasibility of the method for crossing obstacles.

The experimental data and results are described and analyzed, showing that the proposed method is feasible and effective through simulation and implementation.

The main contribution is the humanoid robot’s actuation control technology and humanoid action realization, which could be used for squatting and moving heavy objects to help a humanoid robot adapt effectively.

The purpose of this paper is to design a novel optimized biped robot gait generator which plays an important role in helping the robot to move forward stably. Based on a mathematical point of view, the gait design problem is investigated as a constrained optimum problem. Then the task to be solved is closely related to the evolutionary calculation technique.

Based on this fact, this paper proposes a new way to optimize the biped gait design for humanoid robots that allows stable stepping with preset foot-lifting magnitude. The newly proposed central force optimization (CFO) algorithm is used to optimize the biped gait parameters to help a nonlinear uncertain humanoid robot walk robustly and steadily. The efficiency of the proposed method is compared with the genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization and improved differential evolution algorithm (modified differential evolution).

The simulated and experimental results carried out on the small-sized nonlinear uncertain humanoid robot clearly demonstrate that the novel algorithm offers an efficient and stable gait for humanoid robots with respect to accurate preset foot-lifting magnitude.

This paper proposes a new algorithm based on four key gait parameters that enable dynamic equilibrium in stable walking for nonlinear uncertain humanoid robots of which gait parameters are initiatively optimized with CFO algorithm.

Humanoid robots have been utilized in many fields such as medical, construction, and disaster response. While humanoid robots nowadays can achieve great capabilities, the one-leg balancing task still poses a challenging problem. This paper aims to propose a novel approach to solve the problem.

To aid the balance of one leg in humanoid robot, an external balance mechanism is inserted to the back of the humanoid robot. First, a dynamic model of the humanoid robot with balance mechanism and its simplified model are introduced. Second, a backstepping-based control method is utilized to build the proposed controller for one-leg stance system through two steps. For the first step, a minimum observer-based controller with a virtual control input is used to control the first sub-system reaching the desired reference input. For the second step, a virtual control input is considered as a reference input of a second sub-system, then a model reference adaptive controller (MRAC) is employed to control the second sub-system reaching the virtual control input in presence of uncertainties. By using the external balance mechanism, the sideway balancing task is separated from normal walking function. Furthermore, the utilization of the balance mechanism ensures the humanoid robot's hip adduction does not exceed the threshold of a human when walking. Finally, a simulation study is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper proposes a model reference adaptive control using state observer for balancing one leg of humanoid robot in stance phase that extends our previous research (Tran et al., 2021).

The main research contents have been introduced.

Mixed products, while presenting new business opportunities, raise considerable concerns among managers and researchers. However, whether mixed products (functionally vs culturally) trigger positive or negative consumer reactions is controversial. Hereby, the present research seeks to resolve the conflicting effects by examining the moderating role of service provider type (humanoid service robot vs human employee) in the impact of mixed products on consumer reactions.

Two studies were conducted to explore the effect of mixed products on consumer reactions. Specifically, study 1 was developed to examine the interplay of mixed products and service provider type in shaping consumers' product attitudes and purchase intentions under an offline shopping scenario; study 2 further provided evidence for the mediating roles of perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment in the above processes under an online-shopping context.

The convergent findings of two studies conclude that, when served by a humanoid service robot (vs human employee), consumers exhibit more positive attitudes and higher purchase intentions toward functionally (vs culturally) mixed products. Furthermore, such effect is driven by the perceived usefulness (vs perceived enjoyment) when served by humanoid robot (vs human employee).

First, this is one of the first studies to conceptualize mixed products as the two-dimensional construct (i.e. functionally mixed and culturally mixed), and the findings sheds light on the mixed products literature. Second, this paper introduces service provider type as the boundary condition for the impact of mixed products on consumers' product attitudes and purchase intentions, which expands the match-up hypothesis and schema theory in service marketing. Third, the current research explores the mediating roles of perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment in the above effects, which could make significant contribution to the motivation theory.

This research aims to investigate the influence of consumers' anticipated trust in service providers on brand switching intention and its underlying psychological mechanism. More importantly, this study explores the moderating role of type of service providers (human staff/humanoid robots/nonhumanoid robots).

This study adopted two single-factor between-subjects experimental designs and tested the hypotheses in two typical service failure scenarios: Study 1, a hotel scenario (N = 403); and Study 2, a restaurant scenario (N = 323).

The results suggest that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between consumers' anticipated trust and tolerance of service failure and that such tolerance has a mediating effect on the relationship between anticipated trust and brand switching intention. Moreover, when service failure is caused by a humanoid service robot, a moderate anticipated trust level of consumers is most conducive to increasing tolerance, which in turn reduces their propensity to switch brands.

This study examines the nature of the relationship between anticipated trust and tolerance in a service failure context, revealing an inverted U-shaped relationship. More importantly, the boundary conditions under which different service provides have an influence on this relationship are incorporated. Finally, this study explores the influence of service failure tolerance on brand switching intentions in a technological context, enriching consumer–brand relationship research.