The new version of sony's Aibo dog robot

The first model of this robot dog was marketed 18 years ago. Riddled with sensors and doped with artificial intelligence, it comes back in a new version scheduled for 2018. When released in 1999, Aibo, the robot dog Sony, quickly became the darling of gadget lovers, including Japanese, very fond of robotics.

Yet expensive (around 1800 euros), Aibo was sold to 15 million copies worldwide until the cessation of commercialization in 2006. Sony has closed the after-sales service of its dog robot in 2014, many Japanese owners, very attached to the one they considered a true companion, even participated in a funeral service for the Aibo.

Good news for those unfortunate: Sony has finally decided to resurrect Aibo. The Japanese firm has just presented a new version of its dog robot that will be released in early 2018. Its design is much more successful than for the first model, including two Oled screens as eyes that allow him to convey expressions.

Technically, this Aibo 2 is much more sophisticated than its predecessor. Its joints provide 22 degrees of freedom in the head, mouth, neck, legs, ears and tail. The robot carries a whole series of sensors (movements, distance, brightness, pressure, gyroscope) distributed on the back, the jaw, the head, the posterior, but also microphones, a loudspeaker and two fish-eye cameras to map its environment.

Aibo knows how to recognize his masters, can understand them when they speak to him and react to caresses. It can run for two hours before needing to be recharged.

Sony is also using artificial intelligence and deep learning to evolve the behavior of the robot over its interactions. In addition, the dog robot is connected to a cloud computing platform that will collect data from all Aibo's in service in order to create a common knowledge base meant to improve their intelligence.

At first, Aibo will be sold in Japan from January 11 for 1500 euros, plus a subscription to the cloud service of 22 euros per month