Honda is to showcase new robotics concepts at CES aimed at helping to improve people's lives. Part of its 3E outlook, which stands for "Empower, Experience, Empathy," the bots have been designed to show how the company sees robotics and artificial intelligence assisting people in recreation, the workplace and disaster relief.
Naturally Honda isn't giving too much away ahead of the full reveal on January 9, but four robots have been lined up for the trade show in Las Vegas – one of which we've briefly seen before. Now named 3E-C18, the RoboCas is an all-in-one wheeled cooler, follow-me cargo trailer, urban transporter and vending stand that was first seen at the recent Tokyo Motor Show.
The remainder comprise a light bulb-shaped companion bot that's able to show "compassion to humans" using facial expressions, a roving chair for casual indoor and outdoor use and an autonomous quad bike that's reported to rock artificial intelligence to help it support "a broad range of work activities."
Also on the roster for CES 2018 is a display that includes a portable hot-swap battery pack for EVs, a recharging system for use at home, recreation or disaster relief and a battery exchanger concept.
Honda's keeping mum about details, but has released the brief teaser video below that does at least show some close ups of the concepts.
Source: Honda
We are so much worse at robots than we predicted we would be in the past.