Sony Loans Aibo Prototypes to University of Tokyo and UC Berkeley for Research
The loan program signals Sony's intent to use academic research to refine aibo's hardware and software for social implementation beyond the consumer toy market.
Reporting from 1 source: ASCII.jp.
Sony will loan prototype aibo units and development tools to the University of Tokyo and UC Berkeley for research on robots that live with humans. The units will be exhibited at SIGGRAPH 2026. Sony aims to gather feedback from researchers and developers to inform future aibo products and services. General sales of the prototypes have not been disclosed.
Sony's loan of aibo prototypes to academic labs shifts the robot's development beyond the consumer market. The University of Tokyo's Kei Okada lab and UC Berkeley's Angjoo Kanazawa lab will each receive prototype units and beta development tools. Their research will focus on robots that share living spaces with humans, using aibo's dog-like design to study social interaction and tactile sensing. Sony plans to use the findings to guide future aibo products and services. The prototypes will also appear at the Sony booth at SIGGRAPH 2026 later this month.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- ASCII.jp ソニー、研究開発用「aibo」を東大などに貸し出し 将来の製品に活用