Murata developed a unicycle-riding robot which was built on the concept of a kindergarten girl- MurataGirl. The robot stands on one wheel and keeps its balance by arbitrarily controlling rotation of the wheel for front-to-back direction, and rotation of the fly-wheel built into her chest for side-to-side direction, controlled by signals from the gyro sensor.. The robot is 50-cm-tall robot, weighs 6kg and carries a Zodiac sign.

The company also had an 2008 Model, however the 2009 Model can ride at at 15cm/sec which is faster that the older model. The gyro sensor detects the riding directions through signals which makes the robot avoid obstacle. The robot has a camera on the lower part of its body which process the images captured for more precise movement. It also uses transmission of ultrasonic and reception of ultrasonic bounced back to evade obstacles.

The MurataGirl 2009 Model will be on demonstration at the CEATEC Japan 2009 between October 6th to October 10th.

@ fareastgizmos