Japan is known as a future-oriented country with propensity for adopting robots ahead of rest of the world; as such it today still continues to challenge forward-looking projects related to technology. In line with images shown in comics/Anime and SciFi movies, a plethora of mechanical equipment which remind of robots, from factory automation to sentry drones, can be found almost everywhere on the island nation. The academic discipline of robotics as a scientific pursuit of realizing practical robots is said to have started in the 1950s, although the idea of human-like "appliances" made to serve humans physically was originated in ancient Greece as well as in China. The concept of non-human "laborers" gained global currency thanks to Czech playwright Karel Capek's 1920 science fiction, wherein the term "robot" was coined, then was followed up by the manifestation depicted in Fritz Lang's movie "Metropolis." However it was Osamu Tezuka's "Astroboy" TV show which turned Japan into a major powerhouse in terms of robots, having the aim of assisting and even rescuing people. Today, robotics is a major academic field, as borne out by mechatronic devices being realized at Tohoku University.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the Tohoku University robots design lab located in Sendai are particularly at the leading edge. The work of Professor Yasuhisa Hirata upon which we herewith focus offers an example of interfacing not just for robots and humans but with the environment and nature as well.