Toyota researcher sees cheap robots made possible by mass production

Tokyo

THE researcher hired by Toyota Motor Corp to spearhead its robotics and artificial intelligence efforts said that the carmaker's production principles can be applied to build affordable helper robots for rapidly ageing societies.

Robot makers are struggling with the same scale challenges that the car industry overcame with the "miracle" that occurred when Henry Ford developed the assembly line, according to Gill Pratt, the chief executive officer of Toyota Research Institute. Toyota's vaunted production system later showed how to make cars both more cheaply and reliably, despite mistake-prone humans' role in manufacturing, he said.