Are they really right around the corner, or are they still decades away?
Continuing our Future of Sex Expert Series, we invited Bjorn Johnsson of Lux Botics to offer his opinion on the question: What is the timeline for realistic humanoid robot companions?
Bjorn Johnsson—Founder, Lux Botics
One of the main challenges in achieving a generic, mass-produced, realistic adult humanoid robot is the fact that most clients want a high degree of customization.
This customization can range from physical appearance to special functions, making it difficult to create a one-size-fits-all solution. Full-sized humanoid robots are expensive to develop, so the final price tag is similar to a car. At these price levels, it is understandable that the customer will want customizations.
We have had a customer who wanted 24 sensors distributed in specific locations in the robot’s body. Another customer wanted a realistic heartbeat, both in terms of a physical heartbeat and the sound of a heartbeat. Many of these special wishes cannot be added after a robot is completed, so they must be added while putting the robot together.
With so many different wishes, it is, therefore, very difficult to pre-manufacture and mass-produce a generic doll and hope that’s what the customer wants. So we have found this is the biggest challenge and therefore we are only getting orders on one-off fully customized robots.
While we already produce custom-made (one-off, 1-1 customer) adult humanoid robots, the timeline for a mass-produced generic, realistic adult humanoid robot companion remains uncertain; we are confident that continued production process advancements will bring us closer to this goal.
Image Sources: Lux Botics
