After manufacturing some of the top cars on the planet, Toyota has decided to look out for projects in space. Now, Toyota has made an announcement that they will be offering a 13.4 inch humanoid robot called Kirobo. The carmaker said that they are focusing on various experiments in space and Kirobo will be the first of all the experiments. It was revealed that the humanoid robot will participate in the human robot space conversation experiments that will take place on International Space Station. Toyota said that they are really glad to be a part of this experiment which is one of its kind.

For the development of this humanoid robot, Toyota Motor Corporation has collaborated with Dentsu Inc, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology and Robo Garage Co. Ltd. The announcement also revealed that Kirobo will be aboard on the Kounotori 4 cargo spacecraft that is scheduled to launch from Tanegashima Space Center to the International Space Station on August 4. Toyota said that they have also received extensive support on Kirobo from The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

While RCAST and Robo Garage have focused on the hardware and motion generation of Kirobo, Toyota has worked on the voice recognition function that is crucial to the success of the mission. Toyota mentioned that it will be a historic moment for them to introduce better voice recognition technology that will make the human-robot conversation better and help astronauts to communicate with other robots in the right way in the future.