Hanako 2 Dental Patient Robot Gets Upgraded

It's time again for news of freakishly human-like robots from Japan. We've seen plenty of very life-like humanoid robots in the past, such as with the Geminoids, but this one has a more defined purpose. The Hanako is a dental patient robot created for simulating real-life procedures for practicing dental students. Just recently, the robot got upgraded to Hanako 2 with major improvements in appearance.

The Hanako robot is made by Tmsuk to behave like a human dental patient that not only provides an open mouth for students to operate on but can actually react with saliva discharge, sneezing, blinking, and closing of the mouth. The Hanako 2 builds on this with improved speech recognition and a more realistic skin and movement.

Tmsuk partnered with a maker of "love dolls" to replace the original PVC skin with silicone. The eyes and lips are also now more realistic, with eyes being able to blink and roll. The silicone was also used to form the tongue and cheek lining. Check out the video below to see the Hanako 2 at work.

[via CrunchGear]