ZMP Inc. is a Japanese robotics company. The company was established in January 2001, based on the research results encouraged the Kitano Symbiotic System Project, under the jurisdiction of Japan's

MEXT The , also known as MEXT or Monka-shō, is one of the eleven Ministries of Japan that composes part of the executive branch of the Government of Japan. Its goal is to improve the development of Japan in relation with the international community. ...

. Their first product released was the

humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and ''-oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20t ...

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

PINO Pino or Piño may refer to: People * Danny Pino (born 1974), American actor * Domenico Pino (1760–1826), Italian general of the Napoleonic Wars * Fernando Solanas (born 1936), aka "Pino" Solanas, Argentine filmmaker * Frank J. Pino (1909–200 ...

in 2001. The company's name comes from the Zero Moment Point, a physical quantity related to the dynamics of legged systems. More recently, they released the humanoid robot nuvo in 2005 and the music robot miuro in 2006. In 2009, the research platform for next generation cars RoboCar was released. In 2008, ZMP and 3 other Japanese robot companies (''Tmsuk Co Ltd'', ''Vstone Co Ltd'', and ''Business Design Laboratory Co Ltd'') teamed up in an effort to promote the diffusion of robotic technologies in everyday life. This effort was called the 'Association for Market Creation of the Future Generation Robots'. In July 2015,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

teamed up with ZMP Inc. to form a

Joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

called Aerosense, to create commercial drones for the survey and inspection of difficult to access (e.g. remote) areas. The following month, Aerosense released videos of two prototypes, the ''AS-DTO1-E''

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-win ...

, and the ''AS-MCO1-P''

quadcopter A quadcopter or quadrotor is a type of helicopter with four Helicopter rotor, rotors. Although quadrotor helicopters and convertiplanes have long been flown experimentally, the configuration remained a curiosity until the arrival of the moder ...

Sony Electric Vehicle

ZMP is also working together with Sony in another area.

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

is working on automobile technology,

self-driving cars A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

and even perhaps a driverless taxi service. More recently

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

was rumoured (later confirmed) to be working on electric vehicles ( iCar/ Project Titan) to rival those made by the likes of Tesla. Sony hopes to do well from this emerging self-driving automotive industry and has therefore invested $842,000 in ZMP.

PATORO disinfection robot

To help building managers deal with the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, ZMP is leasing PATORO, an "autonomous security and disinfection robot", for spraying disinfectant over surfaces, such as the hallways of large structures; PATORO also has building security functions.

References

{{reflist Robotics companies of Japan Robotics in Japan Companies established in 2001 Manufacturing companies based in Tokyo Electric vehicle industry Unmanned aerial vehicles of Japan Japanese brands Sony