Peking University
From the SelectedWorks of Yueh-Hsuan Weng

February 13, 2015

Intersection of “Tokku” Special Zone, Robots, andthe Law: A Case Study on Legal Impacts to
Humanoid Robots
Yueh-Hsuan Weng, Peking University
Yusuke Sugahara, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Kenji Hashimoto, Waseda University
Atsuo Takanishi, Waseda University

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/weng_yueh_hsuan/39/

Int J of Soc Robotics
DOI 10.1007/s12369-015-0287-x

Intersection of “Tokku” Special Zone, Robots, and the Law:
A Case Study on Legal Impacts to Humanoid Robots
Yueh-Hsuan Weng · Yusuke Sugahara ·Kenji Hashimoto · Atsuo Takanishi

Accepted: 24 January 2015
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract The unique “Tokku” Special Zone for Robotics Empirical Testing and Development (RT special zone)
originated in Japan. Since 2003, the world’s first RT special
zone had already established in Fukuoka Prefecture, Fukuoka
City and Kitakyushu City. At that time, Takanishi Laboratory, Humanoid Robotics Institute of Waseda University had
conducted many empirical testing within several different
spots of the special zone to evaluate the feasibility for bipedal
humanoid robots on public roads from 2004 to 2007. It is also
known as the world’s first public roads testing for bipedal
robots. The history of RT special zone is merely 10 years
long, but there are already many special zones establishedin Fukuoka, Osaka, Gifu, Kanagawa and Tsukuba. As thedevelopment of robotics and its submergence to the society
expand, the importance of RT special zone as an interface
for robots and society will be more apparent. In this paper,
our main focus is to view the impacts of the “Tokku” speY.-H. Weng (B)Institute for Internet Law, Peking University Law School,
Changchunyuan, No.5 Yiheyuan Rd, Beijing 100871, Chinae-mail: yhweng@pku.edu.cn
Y. Sugahara
School of Science and Engineering, Kokushikan University,
4-28-1, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 154-8515, Japane-mail: ysugahar@kokushikan.ac.jp
K. Hashimoto
Research Institute for Science and Engineering (RISE),
Waseda University, 41-304, 17, Kikui-cho, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 162-0044, Japane-mail: k-hashimoto@ieee.org
A. Takanishi
Department of Modern Mechanical Engineering/Humanoid Robotics
Institute, Waseda University, 2-2, Wakamatsu-cho, Shinjuku-ku,
Tokyo 162-8480, Japane-mail: takanisi@waseda.jp

cial zone system to the human-robot co-existence society. We
would like to make a systematic review for RT special zone,
and further to investigate the relationship between RT special
zone, robots and the law through a case study on legal impacts
regarding bipedal humanoid robots in which the materials forthe case study come from Waseda University’s experiment
on WL-16RII and WABIAN-2R at the Fukuoka RT special
zone.
Keywords Regulation of robotics · Robot law ·Human-robot co-existence · Empirical legal studies ·RT special zone · Humanoid robots

1 Introduction
From a global perspective, conflicts between advanced robotics and existing regulations have risen. Specifically, due tothe uncertainty of machine safety and legal liabilities, traffic
laws of most countries are not prepared to allow the practical usages and implementations for service robots and selfdriving cars.
However, places where next-generation robots performtheir duties are not closed structured environments such as
factories but open environments where humans coexist. It
is unreasonable to ask a robotics manufacturer who creates
open environment adaptable robots to produce robots thatcannot be tested in public areas during development. This
would reflect a contradiction between technical and social
artifacts from the socio-technical systems perspective. Thus,
a compromise by Japan previously was to divide the “Tokku”
Special Zone for Robotics Empirical Testing and Development (RT special zone) from open environments.
As the “Robot Kingdom”, Japan has a relative leadin robotics technology. Therefore, some social impacts of123

Int J of Soc Robotics

advanced robotics in real society can be found there. The
unique RT special zone originated in Japan. It is necessary
to certify ethical, functional and safety aspects of the service
robots in order to fully realize its potential of co-existencewith humans. However, the implementations of these social
aspects certification is very limited at laboratories without
ample amounts of empirical data. Thus, it is difficult for us
to develop regulations for service robots.
One dilemma for the development of service robots is thelack of specific guidelines for next-generation robots leads touncertainty of pre-safety regulations and post-safety liability
distribution. This barrier causes a delay in the competitiveness of the whole RT industry.
The major purpose of the Japanese government to set up
this special zone system is to enhance industrial competition
from over-regulation. In addition, the establishment of RT
special zones are based on authorization from The Law ofSpecial Zone for Structural Reform and The Comprehensive
Special Zone Act. The main function of RT special zones is
to conduct practical testing related to RT research and development, especially on the realization of RT experiments on
public roads. Related special measures include The Measure
for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads, The
Measure for Manned Mobility Robots’ Empirical Experimenton Public Roads and other revised traffic regulations. However, it is not just limited to these, the RT special zone hasother functions such as “Building anchor points for RT startups”, “Supporting government-industry-university collaborations that are cross-administrative”, “Gathering robotic
researchers” and “Developing youth scientific RT education”.
Since 2003, the world’s first RT special zone had alreadyestablished in Fukuoka Prefecture, Fukuoka City and Kitakyushu City. At that time, Takanishi Laboratory, Humanoid
Robotics Institute of Waseda University had conducted many
empirical testing within several different spots of the special
zone to evaluate the feasibility for bipedal robots on publicroads from 2004 to 2007 [1]. This is known as the world’s
first public roads testing for bipedal robots. The history of RT
special zone is merely 10 years long, but there are alreadymany special zones established in Fukuoka, Osaka, Gifu,
Kanagawa and Tsukuba. As the development of robotics andits submergence to the society expand, the importance of RT
special zone as an interface for robots and society will be
more apparent.
There are three main reasons for us to select the Fukuoka
RT special zone as the object of our case study. First, Japan’s
first RT special zone was established in Fukuoka. Also, theworld’s first bipedal humanoid robots practical testing on
public roads was realized there; Second, we have formalcooperation from the administrative body of the Fukuoka
RT special zone, which includes the “Robotics Industry
Development Council” (RIDC) and the Fukuoka City Hall;

123

Third, there have been many practical experiments of bipedal
humanoids conducted in Fukuoka for the past decade, wehave ample references and empirical data for us to investigate the legal issues of bipedal humanoids.
In this paper, our main focus is to view the impacts of the“Tokku” special zone system on human-robot co-existencesociety. We would like to make a systematic review for
RT special zone, and further to investigate the relationshipbetween RT special zone, robots, and the law. We will introduce the history of RT special zone for our readers in Sect. 2;
address theoretical issues for RT special zone as an interface
for robots and society in Sect. 3; provide a sketch of Fukuoka
RT special zone and an overview of Waseda University’s public road experiment in downtown Fukuoka in Sect. 4; and in
Sect. 5, we will conduct a case study on legal impacts regarding bipedal humanoid robots in which the materials for thecase study come from Takanishi Lab, Waseda University’s
experiment on WL-16RII and WABIAN-2R at the Fukuoka
RT special zone.
2 The History of “Tokku” Special Zone for Robotics
Empirical Testing and Development
In 2002, the Japanese government passed The Law on Special Zones for Structural Reform, which aims to promotesocio-economic structural reform and the revitalization of
the local areas through the establishment of special zones.
Special regulatory measures exist in these special zones inorder to stimulate the local economy [2,3]. For example, inorder to overcome the Road Traffic Act’s strict restriction on
robotics research and development in laboratories, the special zones allowed preferential regulatory measures for academic institutions and private companies to test their robots
on public roads.
The world’s first “Special Zone for Robot Development
and Practical Testing” was approved by the Cabinet Officeof Japan on November 28, 2003. The RT special zone covers Fukuoka Prefecture, Fukuoka City and Kitakyushu City,
where the three local public bodies jointly established the
Robotic Industry Development Council (RIDC) in chargeof managing and operating the whole Fukuoka RT specialzone. This particular zone focused on the development ofindustrial, medical, welfare, secure and rescue robots. The
five aims for the Fukuoka RT special zone are: (1) Building
anchor points for RT startups; (2) Conducting practical testing related to RT research and developments; (3) Supporting government-industry-university collaborations that arecross-administrative; (4) Gathering robotic researchers; and(5) Developing youth scientific RT education. In addition,
the RT special zone is a conceptual region legally approvedby the government. If experimental regulations were successful, then the regulatory measures could be expanded into
nationwide regulations or laws [4].

Int J of Soc Robotics

According to Article 3, Paragraph 3 of The Law on Special Zones for Structural Reform, they designed a special
measure called The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads. “The Measure” clearly defines robot
experiments on public roads permissible by both the Road
Transport Vehicle Act and the Road Traffic Act and facilitates the licensing procedures for outdoor robot experiments.
Through the preferable regulatory measures, it opens a way
to carry out robot experiment on public roads. The contentsof the measure are as follows [5]:1. The Modification of To-Do-Fu-Ken Police Committee’s
Regulations1
According to Article 77, Paragraph 1, Number 4 of theJapanese Road Traffic Act, To-Do-Fu-Ken Police Committee’s Regulations should be modified. The same paragraph also pointed out behaviors which need permission
from the local police department, such as experiments
related to robots’ walking or movement on public roads.
2. The Permission of Road Usage(a) Permission for experiments in Special Zones for
Structural Reform should consider the characteristics of the experiment, the capability of robots, andthe traffic situation of surrounding road area. During
the process of judging the application from related
behaviors in Article 77, Paragraph 2, it is allowed
to make the decision according to appropriate conditions.
(b) When requesting permission for the movement ofrobots on the public roads, the robots of the experiment should adhere, to the best of their abilities, traffic
regulations in order to prevent accidents with irrelevant vehicles or pedestrians. The experiment should
be conducted under this premise, especially in conditions where the road does not have a clear sidewalk
and traffic lane. Robots must obey traffic regulations
for general vehicles.
(c) Granting permission to pass through both the sidewalk and bicycle specific lane should be based thepossibility of an accident; the size, weight, speed, etc.
of the robot; the possible amount of damage to thehuman body during a collision; and a strategy fromthe applicant to prevent or reduce such an incident.
The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads is a crucial initial step to realizing a society in whichhumans and robots coexist. The expedient regulatory measures in traffic laws reduce the institution barriers, therefore
allowing robots to adapt to bumpy surfaces, surfaces with
1 “To-Do-Fu-Ken” is an abbreviation of four kinds of first level ofadministrative division in Japan, they include To (capital), Do (territory),
Fu (urban prefecture), and Ken (prefecture).

steps and pedestrians, and various locations in which outdoor conditions can be complex and unpredictable. This isimportant to robotists because they could ensure the robot
safety through practical testing in outdoor spaces from both
software and hardware perspectives. The project had initially launched in Fukuoka and Kitakyushu cities in February
2004. Takanishi Laboratory, Humanoid Robotics Institute,
Waseda University had deployed two bipedal robots WL16RII and WABIAN-2R from July 2004 to 2007. The testing
was distributed among several locations in Fukuoka City: theentrance and stairway of the shopping mall Hakata Riverain,
the zebra crossing of the Kawabata Shopping Street, the stairway of Kagami Tenmangu Shrine, Hakata Kotobuki Bridge,
entrances of the TNC TV Building and Fukuoka Tower, andFukuoka Castle Ruins. The first batch of these long-term
outdoor experiments were from July 7, 2004 to December
21, 2004. This instance is known as the world’s first bipedal
robots’ practical testing on public roads [6].
At the beginning, The Measure for Facilitating Robots’Experiment on Public Roads were applied in a few RT special
zones between 2004 and 2006. Through extensive practical
testing, the Japanese government recognized its necessity
and later revised nationwide regulations in January 2006.
According to the document issued on January 23, 2006 by
the Traffic Bureau, National Police Agency of Japan, thespecial regulatory measures of The Measure for Facilitating
Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads was replaced by thefollowing nationwide traffic regulations [7]:1. The Measure to Clarify the Object for Road Use Permission: In order to overcome the barrier for experimenting
robots on public roads, To-Do-Fu-Ken Police Committee’s Regulations should be modified based on Article
77, Paragraph 1, Number 4 of the Japanese Road TrafficAct.
2. The Basic Thinking of Road Use Permission for the experiment for robots on public roads: the characteristics of theexperiment, the capability of robots, the traffic situationof surrounding area. During the process of judging, it isallowed to make the decision according to appropriate
conditions from related behaviors in Article 77, Paragraph 2.
3. Notes for Handling the Road Use Permission for theexperiment for robots on public roads: Since the subject’s safety and capability is unproven yet, the examiner
will consider the necessity of traffic regulations for theexperiment when deciding in order to prevent collisions
with pedestrians or other vehicles.
Located in geographic center of Japan, Gifu prefecture
has its own ambition to develop their RT industry. The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads
had implemented in Gifu’s RT special zone in May 2004; its

123Int J of Soc Robotics

first outdoor testing was launched in April 2005 at Techno
Plaza (Kakamigahara City).2 In addition, the establishmentof Wabot-House Laboratory3 under the collaboration with
Waseda University was also part of the Gifu RT specialzone. There are three kinds of wabot-house in this project,
the first one is a typical house occupied by humans, thesecond is designed for robots only, and the third is a special living space designed for human and robot coexistence.
Researchers believe that this project may result in inventing a
new social system and principle of technical designs throughclose interactions between human and robots at wabot houses[8].
Since 2002 the Osaka Prefecture has also started to pay
attention to service robotics. It founded the “Robotic Industry Promotion Organization” (soon renamed as “Next Generation RT Industry Creation and Research Organization”)
in the same year. The next year it made policy guidelinesthat included two stages to construct its regional RT industry. The first stage aims for attracting talents and to make
Osaka become a research and development center of RT, andthe second stage aims to combine local resources to develop
RT startups. The core idea of the guideline is “Field Creation”, which has two folds of meaning. It allows a field forresearchers to exchange their ideas and a field for empiricalhuman and robot interaction testing.
Adjacent to Osaka, Kyoto and Nara Prefectures, “Kansai
Science City” is recognized as Kansai area’s first RT special zone in 2003, but The Measure for Facilitating Robots’Experiment on Public Roads had only been added to the
Osaka special zone until 2005. In November 2005, when
Nara Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST)
started to test an electric personal assistive mobility device—
Segway and a tele-operated electric wheelchair on publicroads in the special zone, they found that radio transceiver
may be obscured because of architectural barriers [9]. Knowledge Capital, an area facing the north side of JR Osaka
Station, has a RoboCity CoRE (Center of RT Experiments)
project which aims to develop and study a huge “Robo City”
supporting human-robot coexistence [10].
The political power of Japan was transferred from the
Liberal Democratic Party to the Democratic Party in 2009.
Based on Hatoyama cabinet’s “New Growth Strategy”, theJapanese government created new special zone system called
The Comprehensive Special Zone, and the policy was realized 2 years later by Kan cabinet when The Comprehensive
Special Zone Act was enacted in August 2011.
In the same year, Tsukuba was designated The Comprehensive Special Zone for International Competitiveness
Development—which aims for strategic development on“cancer treatment”, “personal care robots”, “algal biomassenergy”, and “TIA-nano” [11]. Its two main objectives
included the study of manned/personal mobility robots on
their social effectiveness, affinity to pedestrians, safety topassengers in the real world and to investigate their potential
service business model.4
The major difference between Special Zone for Structural
Reform and Comprehensive Special Zone is that the former
focuses on experimental regulations for socio-economic revitalization and the latter includes special regulatory measuresand considers revitalizing areas through preferential treatment like taxation and financial support. In other words, itseeks to provide comprehensive support for strategic projects
in the regions [12].
Although Tsukuba City was designated as the comprehensive RT special zone, prior to its official establishment,
there were two crucial projects related to human-robot coexistence underway: “Real World Robot Challenge” and“NEDO Life Supporting RT Safety Certification Center”. In
Japan, robots practical testing on public roads/areas has beenrealized nationwide since January 2006 under the prior censorship by local police departments. Based on this premise,
professor Shinichi Yuta from the University of Tsukuba hadlaunched the “Real World Robot Challenge” (a.k.a. “Tsukuba
Challenge”) in 2007, and it aims for enhancing autonomous
mobile robots’ capability to perform their tasks in real world
unstructured environments. By estimation, there were 280
teams that participated in the challenge in Tsukuba City
from 2007 to 2011 [13]. New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) had funded a 5 year
project for the establishment of Life Supporting RT Safety
Certification Center in Tsukuba 2010. Its objectives are “toseek risk assessment approaches for life supporting robots”
and to develop life supporting robots embedded with safetymeasures [14].
Compared to other RT special zones, the latest Tsukuba
RT special zone is not only approved as part of the Comprehensive Special Zone, but it is also the first special zone thatapplied The Measure for Manned Mobility Robots’ Empirical Experiment on Public Roads. Compared with the previous
The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public
Roads, it suggests special measures for road usage permission and regulatory measures related to road traffic be added,
as following:– “Road Traffic Act”:
1. Vehicles with Special Structure be Appointed byPrime Minister.
2. The Measures for Asking Powered-Bicycle Should
Show a Sign on its Back.
3. Relevant Measures to Road Usage Permission.

2 http://www.vrtc.co.jp/gift/tokku/tokku.html.
3 http://www.wabot-house.waseda.ac.jp.

123

4 http://www.rt-tsukuba.jp/policy.

Int J of Soc Robotics– “Road Transport Vehicle Act”:
1. Vehicles with Special Structure be Appointed by
Traffic Minister.
2. Safety and Security Standard for Road Transport
Vehicle.
3. Relevant Special Measures to Accept the Signing
Responsibility of Alleviating Judgment of Standard
for Road Transport Vehicle.
4. Principles for Judging Standard Alleviating Vehicles.
Fig. 1 A trend of rising legal issues from RT special zones

On December 27, 2012, the National Police Agency
created new special traffic measures for manned mobility
robots. For example, the RT public road testing can be
exempted from erecting boundary signs if the highest speedof manned mobility robots is lower than 10km/h [15]. There
was progress of highway experiments in the RT special zone
in addition to street experiments. In 2013, Nissan carried out
Japan’s first public road test of a LEAF autonomous vehicle from Samukawa-South IC to Samukawa-North IC of theMetropolitan Inter-City (KEN-O) Expressway [16].
In the past decade, Japan had invested a huge amount of
resources to support robots outdoor empirical testing and theoutcome has been fruitful. The RT special zone is a milestonewhich served as a platform to coordinate technical and social
systems in regard to robotics.

3 “Tokku” Special Zone as an Interface for Robots andSociety
According to the prediction from the Japanese Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), the “Human-Robot
Co-Existence Society” will be fully developed between 2020
and 2030. At present, it is just in its infancy, and there will be
more and more robots entering human living spaces within
the next decade [17]. Thus, it is understandable that the conflicts between advanced robotics and current existing laws
will occur more frequently in the future. This will lead to apotential crisis for balancing industrial competitiveness andlegal openness.
3.1 Short-term Focus: A Policy Making Tool via“Deregulation”
Yoichi Takamoto who is the CEO of Tmsuk, one of the representative Japanese RT companies that specializes in service
robots. He said that
the Japanese are conservative, they are shy to trying new emerging technologies such as service robots.
Besides, they would like to set a bunch of strict laws toprevent any unwanted risks caused by next-generation

robots. The average administrative approval is about
more than 1 year, which is twice of the time span ofindustrial robots [18]Such “Cautious Attitude” hurts Japanese competitivenessin the service robotics industry. From the short-term perspective, the importance of RT special zone is through “deregulation” [19] to cover many potential legal disputes derived
from next-generation robots when they are deployed in thereal world. Japanese official believes a special zone for deregulation can finally ease the overregulated legal barriers andenhance its RT industrial competitiveness.
We collected data from several RT special zones ona national scale, and found a trend of rising legal issues
with service robots in the unstructured environments inthe past decade (Fig. 1). The first legal issue around nextgeneration robots came from RT special zone in 2003. Road
traffic laws for bipedal walking robots were not designed
yet, therefore the police department could not allow the
Takanishi Laboratory to test our WL-16RII bipedal walking robots on public roads. It was not until the next yearthat The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on
Public Roads framework was created under the RT special zone. The street experiments for next-generation robots
was then only allowed within the special zone. However, in
this section we only focus on legal issues which evolvedin RT special zone in the past decade. As for details
regarding the street experiment in Fukuoka RT special zone
and our case study on legal impacts to humanoid robots,
they will be discussed later in Chapter 4 and 5 respectively.
With the exception of bipedal walking robots, selfbalancing personal transporter “Segway” was not allowedon public roads due to safety considerations. In April 2004,
Tokyo Summary Court fined Segway’s local distributor
500,000 yen for violating the Road Traffic Act without avalid motor vehicle inspection certificate and compulsory
automobile liability insurance policy. The result was that theapplications of Segway were limited in private facilities, suchas factories and shopping malls [20]. While Segway werebanned on public roads by the Road Traffic Act, the RT spe-

123Int J of Soc Robotics

cial zone opens another possibility towards its usage in dailyliving spaces.
In November 2005, a Segway and a tele-operated wheel
chair were approved to be tested on public roads by The Measure for Facilitating Robots Experiment on Public Roads in
Kansai Science City. This experiment not only eased the awkward situation of Segway in Japan, but also publicized thelegal issue on radio law and tele-regulation. When exemptedfrom the restriction of special certification for experiments
using the 5GHz wireless frequency range, experts found thatradio transceiver may be obscured because of architecturalbarriers.
Supported by Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs andCommunication (MIC), Kyoto’s ATR Intelligent Robotics
and Communication Laboratories launched the UNR - Ubiquitous Network Robots Research Project in 2009. The main
purpose is to create core technologies and common platforms
allowing network robots to provide services of human-robot
interaction [21]. Part of the project was conducting a field
experiment in a real supermarket of Kyoto, researchers used ahumanoid robot to carry a shopping basket for elderly people[22]. This experiment not only showed an ethical issue thatthe difference of human-robot interaction between a “Tool”
and a “Partner” metaphor [23], but it also accompanies a legal
issue as privacy protection. ATR’s Norihiro Hagita pointed
out a challenge for network robots will be how to smoothlycollect personal data and properly solve those potential disputes regarding privacy [24].
Lacking robot inspection certificate is a popular problem
for service robots at this time. In February 2014 ISO international organization for standardization published the new ISO
13482 as the world’s first safety standard for personal carerobots. This will also bring structural and influential impact
for next generation robots’ safety certification, product liability, ethics and insurance in the future [25]. In the meantime, we might call these regulatory issues “Robot Safety
Governance” [26], the initial step of safety governance wasrealized at the NEDO Life Supporting RT Safety Certification Center of the Tsukuba RT special zone. Another legal
issue from Tsukuba is tax regulation, each RT related enterprise who participates public road experiment have to attacha “Robot Number” plate on its robots as a tax license.5
The implementation of coordinating technical and social
systems for advanced robotics in the real world is rare outsideof Japan. However, there is an experiment known as “Peccioli RoboTown” in Italy. As part of the European DustBot
project [27], the experiment deploys two autonomous mobile
robots called DustCart to collect domestic wastes in the streetof Peccioli, a small historical town in Tuscany. The durationof the project was from June 15, 2010 to August 7, 2010.
The robots collected the waste from the participants which

including 24 families and 10 business shops of Peccioli. By
estimation, the total service time was 454 h, and the services
provided were 402 times, the total distance that robots travelled were 120.6 km, and the total weight of garbage thatrobots collected was 584.1 kg.6
However, an “autonomous vehicle” is a contradiction withthe road traffic convention and the Italian highway code.
Through the collaboration with the local police, the experiment is allowed by special expedient measures to “design
new road signs”, “set up dedicated robot lane”, “negotiate a
new insurance policy for robots”, and “erect test site warnings to avoid privacy concerns” [28].
In Japan, settling a rational insurance policy for service
robots which participating in the public road experiment has
always been an open question since the establishment of
Fukuoka RT special zone. As for the Peccioli experiment, theinsurance company requested a 850 euro additional insurance
fee, and the robots were insured against any liability resulting
from their research activities in the town [29].
Google’s self-driving cars faced similar difficulties in legal
and insurance restrictions in the United States. Up until now,
only California, Nevada and Florida have approved the test ofself-driving cars to access on public roads. Nevada is the first
American state to pass regulations allowing for the operationof self-driving cars. State traffic laws requires self-drivingcars be distinguished as “Autonomous Test Vehicles” with
red license plates displayed on the public roads [30].
Although Google’s self-driving car has passed 300,000
miles testing in California alone without any serious trouble[31]. Japanese RT special zone’s special measure for experiment on public roads is more cautious from a safety governance perspective. In the very least, it can effectively control damage range caused by Type I (False-Positive) or TypeII (False-Negative) errors from self-driving cars to improvesecurity for inhabitants and their properties of the city [32].
In June 2014, the University of Michigan had announced thebuilding of a “Faux Downtown” outside Ann Arbor, something similar to the “Tokku” special zone for testing the citydriving worthiness of a self-driving car without subjecting acity to the risks [33].
Recently, the Cabinet of Japan established the Robot Revolution Realization Council in order to making comprehensive
policy guidelines for the country’s future strategic development of RT industry. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
held the first meeting of the new council on September 11
2014. Although policy guidelines are still being drafted, as
far as we know deregulation is one of several core issues on
the council’s conference table. Without deregulation, the current overruled Japanese legal system will be a major obstacle
to the realization of its RT business competitiveness [34] aswell as the new safety for human-robot co-existence [35].

5 http://council.rt-tsukuba.jp/info/2011/04/08/133.

6 http://www.robotown.eu.

123Int J of Soc Robotics

Up until now, the Japanese Robot Revolution Realization Council had systematically inspected potential problems from its legal system, and they concluded many overruled existing regulations as follows: “Radio Law”, “Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Law”, “Industrial Safety
and Health Act”, “Road Traffic Law”, “Road Transport Vehicle Act”, “Civil Aeronautics Act”, “Control Law of Injustice Access”, “Consumer Products Safety Act”, “ISO 13482
Safety Standard for Life-supporting Robots”, “Industrial
Standards Law” [36].
As mentioned above, the importance of RT special zone
in the short-term is through “deregulation” to cover current
disputes by next-generation robot in its infancy.
3.2 Long-term Impacts: An Interface for Robots andSociety or “Shock Buffer”
On the other hand, in the long-term, RT special zone is aninterface between robots and society or a “shock buffer” forsupporting human-robot coexistence. Its major functions are
as follows:(1) “To Ensure Machine Safety”:
ISO 12100’s “3-Step” method for risk reduction are “inherently safe design measures”, “safeguarding and complementary protective measures”, and “information for use” [37].
Due to the open-texture risks in unstructured environments,
the machine safety of service robots will not the same as current industrial robots. For example, while the effectivenessof inherently safe design measures become less important,measures for safeguarding, complementary protection, andinformational use become more important. However, safeguarding and complementary protective measures, especiallyfunctional safety and information for use, will need a semiopen region such as RT special zone. This zone will provide
developing robots various empirical testing opportunities tosimulate situations of human-robot coexistence.
In addition, the rates of “Modeling Error” increase in
unstructured environments, and RT special zones can prevent these errors by conducting the same type of empiricaltesting several times.
Finally, RT special zone has one more measure to ensure
safety: “Robotics Nurburgring”. As one of the most rigorous in the world, the Nurburgring motorsports complex was
founded in the 1920s in western Germany. This site allows
many major automobile makers to test the reliability andsafety of their new cars before releasing them into the market.
Unlike University of Michigan’s “Faux Downtown”, which
focuses on the scenario-oriented back-end testing. We believethat the “Robotics Nurburgring” could be a similar entity for
robotics makers to conduct front-end empirical testing of new
products.

(2) “To Prevent High Litigation Risk”:
The other benefit of the RT special zone is that it could
be a “Protective Shield” for robotics companies to prevent high litigation risk during the developmental stages.
Although no machine can be 100 percent perfectly safe,international safety standards such as ISO and IEC certifications can regulate manufacturers’ products. If the manufacturers can prove their products are safe, then perhaps they
can be exempt from product liabilities. However, the safetyof human-robot coexistence is different to traditional safety
of industrial robots because of “unstructured environments”.
Unstructured environments is complex as it may include people, objects and architectures within it. Therefore, adopting
RT special zone to support the development of robot can
avoid high risks of product liability litigation for robotics
makers.
(3) “To Ease Radical Ethics Disputes”:
The reason we adopt humanoid robots is very simple: its
shape fits human living spaces, and thus people naturally
know how to interact with them. However, the moral andethical risks from humanoids are an unavoidable problem. GeorgiaTech’s Prof. Henrik I. Christensen predictedthat
We are getting into the issue of how you want to interact
with these robots... Should you be nice to a person andrude to their likeness? Is it okay to kick a robot dog but
tell your kids to not do that with a normal dog? How
do you tell your children about the difference? [38]Up until now, there are no legal norms which define theproper relationship between human users and the “Third
Existence” sociable robots which have both “tool” and “partner” metaphors. A critical scenario among these issues iswhether to prohibit advanced robotics to be applied into
human-like rubber dolls for normal commercial applications.
For example, David Levy claimed that he believes robot will
finally become humans’ faithful sexual companion as loveand sex with robots will be a trend in the future [39]. Currently in Japan, there are several sex toys makers who are
studying trends of applying advanced robotics into humanlike rubber dolls. It is expected that the human-like rubber dolls will be equipped with intelligent functions whichenable the dolls to naturally interact with humans in a vividway.
As such, there may be moral risks if such products are notregulated; we can not ensure which kinds of negative impacts
it could bring to the society. Therefore, we should consider
observing and establishing an “Isolated Region” for emerging robotics that face strong ethical issues but currently do not123Int J of Soc Robotics

Fig. 2 The three-level hierarchy of “Robot Law”

fall under any types of legal jurisdictions. Such observations
may help law makers to address any ethical issues and create regulations for robots. Another example is that an Italianrobotics group conducted an empirical outdoor observation
on robot social acceptability during a demonstration in a public square. During the observation, they found that young
people tend to react to the robots’ presence with extreme
curiosity and, quite often, when the robots were left unsupervised, to treat them aggressively [40]. If so, RT special zone
will be a practical region for conducting similar empiricalobservations.
RT special zone is a “Double-edged sword” and it also has
a dark side that most people might overlook. Regulators andlawmakers should be very cautious in its design and applications. Though “Tokku” itself is a regulatory tool for easing
radical ethics disputes, we worry that it might be misused
which will result in unwanted human-robot relationships.
Take the upcoming sci-fi film “VICE” as an example: a businessman has designed a law-free resort: “VICE” another RT
special zone where the customers can play out their wildest
and unethical desires with any robots who look, think andfeel like humans [41].
3.3 On the Structure of “Robot Law”
Finally, through the above analysis and empirical data collected from the Fukuoka Tokku, we found the structure of
emerging “Robot Law”, which could be divided into threedifferent categories (Fig. 2):
1. “The Robot Safety Governance Act” is the extension ofcurrent machine safety regulations. An example of a current regulation is EU Directive or UNECE’s motor vehicle “Type Approval”, these regulations are used to rep-123

resent in a highly technical way, or called “TechnicalNorms”. The Robot Safety Governance Act located at
the bottom of “Robot Law” will ensure the safety of new
human-robot co-existence. Because ISO and IEC safety
standards lack enforceability, sometimes we may need
The Robot Safety Governance Act to supervise the robotics makers follow a global consensus when manufacturing reliable and safe robots for people. Plus, unknown
new risks of service robots and the complexity of theiradaptiveness with human living spaces will force us toseek a regulatory framework in order to concord with
the new safety measures of human-robot co-existence.
Therefore, new laws that will be needed may be similar
to the risk regulatory framework for the production ofgenetic food or new drugs. Compared to current safety
governance regulations for industrial robots, electric elevators, vehicles, railway systems, we found a demand for
new the Robot Safety Governance Act to address ethicalimpacts of third existence autonomous robots, such as
the theoretical framework “Safety Intelligence” we proposed earlier [42].
Patrick Lin argues autonomous self-driving cars will needembedded ethical codes to help these cars make correct
decisions in real-time [43] around humans and on public roads, which is crucial to the safety governance ofself-driving cars. As for humanoid robots, in the future
they will not only perform daily duties outside but alsoable to enter inner spaces of buildings in urban area.
With this, highly autonomous humanoid robots will havelarger scale of demands of programmed ethical codes
than autonomous self-driving cars.
There will be two main challenges for integrating the codeof ethics into robot safety regulatory framework. Fromtechnical perspective, we have to consider how to provide a feasible framework embedded ethics into robots
without Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics [44], such as
the Ethical Governor, proposed by GeorgiaTech’s Ron
Arkin [45].
On the other hand, another challenge to realizing programmed code of ethics depends on attitudes from thelawmakers and regulators to the emerging “Ethics by
Design” principle. Under the safety intelligence framework, we have a proposal for an alternative “Legal
Machine Language” based on two principles: Code is
Law and Embedded Ethics. However, if the “Code” isnot able to be authorized with legal effectiveness, then it
is merely a set of machine languages. It would be similar
to today’s “technology protection measurements” - usingcode to limit human’s illegal behaviors of copying, but
the code themselves are not real law. Another example
is “Privacy by Design”: specific code inside information
systems are used as a technological measure to protect
privacy.

Int J of Soc Robotics

In the future or in the middle stage of human-robot coexistence society, it is inevitable to consider a safety abiding “Ethics by Design” principle to embedded code forlimiting autonomous robots’ behavioral risks. However,to highly autonomous robots who perform like humanbeings, it is not ethical to entrust robot manufacturers toapply the “Ethics by Design” principle under a policy inwhich the code of ethics is as a responsibility associatedwith the job as this not enough to ensure safety. In such
scenarios, robot manufacturers have to take consumers’
preference as a priority, otherwise they may lose the market share from their competitors. In the worst situation,
the safety-oriented ethical codes may lose their original
purpose when too many commercial interests seep into
its designing stage. Furthermore, it is seriously against
Immanuel Kant’s ideals that “humans should not mistreat the entity in question, even though it lacked rights
itself”, when highly autonomous robots’ behaviors areconstrained by human’s commercial interests [46].
Above all, our proposal of a “Code is Law” is that thecode of ethics should not simply be one of the manufacturers’ self-responsibility, but it should further become apart of statute law or “Technical Norms”. Although thisenables the code of ethics to be well supervised during
its designing stage, a major problem still falls on how toauthorize the code of ethics with legal effectiveness as it
relates to keeping a balance between many conflicts ofinterests.
2. “The Humanoid Morality Act”: Osaka University’s
Hiroshi Ishiguro predicted that with humanoid robot’s
intelligentization, we will face the problem on how todecide “Robo-rights” when robots became inseparable
entities of human society. He also pointed out that current legal system uses “flesh” as an index for judging
humans, animals or objects’ status and right. However,when the boundary of flesh and machines get closer, it
will bring serious impacts to human legal system [47].
One possibility to solve above problem is to consider
the “The Humanoid Morality Act”, which should be at
the beginning of “Robot Law”, will define a proper relationship between human and robots, and using coercive
power to constraint unethical applications of humanoid
robotics or cyborg technologies. It will construct a fundamental norm for regulating daily interactions between
human and robots. However, its importance will increaseas the development of robotics applications in humansociety expand.
3. “Revisions” will refer to the current existing laws thatneed to be revised due to conflicts with advanced robotics. It is strongly connected with the issue of deregulation, areas may include privacy protection laws, roadtraffic acts, international humanitarian laws, tort laws,
etc...

4 Introduction to Waseda University’s Public Road
Experiments in Fukuoka RT Special Zone
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) hosted the DRC-DARPA Robotic Challenge inDecember 2013.7 The contest asked participating humanoid
robots to accomplish many complex missions, including
driving a vehicle, moving through obstacles, walking throughdifficult terrain, opening gates, climbing ladders, breaking
concrete walls using tools, closing valves and connecting afire hydrant. Team “SCHAFT” accomplished all challenges
and got the highest score of 27 points to be the championof 2013 DARPA Robotic Challenge. This contest showedhumanoids’ high adaptability in human living environments
and the technical maturity of bipedal dynamic walking mechanism.
The research and development for humanoid’s bipedal
walking actually has 40 years of history since the world’s firsthumanoid “WABOT-1” had been invented in 1973. Here webelieve that humanoids entering the human society to serve
people in their daily lives will be a promising future. Thus, wehave conducted a case study on legal impacts to humanoids,
and the materials of this study came from our early publicroad experiments in Fukuoka RT special zone during 2004–
2007.
4.1 A Sketch of Fukuoka RT Special Zone
Since the establishment of the Fukuoka RT special zone
in 2003, there were 22 road use permissions issued by the
local police department. The applicants includes “TakanishiLaboratory, Waseda University”, “Fujie Laboratory, Waseda
University”, “Hasegawa Laboratory, Kyushu University”,“tmsuk Co. Ltd.”, “Institute of Systems, Information Technologies and Nanotechnologies (ISIT)” etc...8
According to a joint proposal published by Fukuoka City,
Kitakyushu City and Fukuoka Prefecture in 2003, there wereeight objectives for the special zone to achieve 10 years later,
they are:
1. The creation and new entry of the robot-related companies: “100 companies”
2. The amount of increase to RT product shipments: “450billion yen”
3. Job Creation: “1,900 positions”
4. Conducted empirical experiments: “250 times”
5. Robot products commercialization from empirical experiments: “50 robots”
6. Academic paper publication and citation: “100 papers/
citations”
7 http://www.theroboticschallenge.org.
8 The data come from non-disclosed documents of Fukuoka City Hall.

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Int J of Soc Robotics

Fig. 3 A sketch of Fukuoka RT special zone

7. Patent application which relate to the process of empiricalexperiments: “50 applications”
8. Enterprises and academic institutions in the town: “10institutions”
Based on the statistical data provided by the Roboti-cs
Industry Development Council,9 we made the following table
as a sketch of Fukuoka RT special zone (Fig. 3).
4.2 The Fukuoka Experiment (2004–2007)
The empirical experiment had initially launched in Fukuoka and Kitakyushu cities in February 2004: TakanishiLaboratory, Humanoid Robotics Institute, Waseda University had deployed two bipedal humanoid robots WL-16RII
and WABIAN-2R from 2004 to 2007 (Fig. 4). The testing
was distributed among several locations in Fukuoka City:
the entrance and stairway of the shopping mall Hakata
Riverain (Shimokawabata, Hakata-ku), the zebra crossingof the Kawabata Shopping Street (Kamikawabata, Hakataku), the stairway of Kagami Tenmangu Shrine (Shimokawabata, Hakata-ku), Hakata Kotobuki Bridge (Shimokawabata,
Hakata-ku), the entrances of the TNC TV Building andFukuoka Tower (Momochihama, Sawara-ku), and Fukuoka
Castle Ruins (Shirouchi, Chuo-ku). The first batch of theselong-term outdoor experiments were from July 7, 2004 to
December 21, 2004. This instance is known as the world’s
first bipedal humanoid robots practical testing on publicroads.
4.3 Bipedal Humanoid Robot WABIAN-2R
WABIAN-2R (WAseda BIpedal humANoid—No. 2 Refined)
was developed in order to investigate a cooperative dynamic
walking and a collaborative work with humans. It is a
9 The data come from non-disclosed documents of Robotics Industry

Development Council (RIDC).

123

Fig. 4 The Fukuoka report for Robots’ development and practical testing in RT special zone (2005)

Fig. 5 WABIAN-2R (WAseda BIpedal humANoid—No. 2 Refined)

humanoid robot with the height of 1500 [mm], and theweight of 60 [kg] (Fig. 5). In order to mimic human movements, the robot has 41 DOFs and the movable range of thejoints designed in reference to human anatomy. The computer
mounted on the trunk controls the motion of WABIAN-2R. It
consists of a PCI CPU board and PCI I/O boards. As the I/Oboards, HRP interface boards (16ch D/As, 16ch counters,
16ch PIOs) and 6-axis force/torque sensor receiver board
are mounted. The operating system is QNX Neutrino ver.

Int J of Soc Robotics

Fig. 7 WABIAN-2R’s experimental site: Fukuoka TNC-TV building

Fig. 6 The specification of WABIAN-2R

6.3. The drive system consists of a DC servo motor with anincremental encoder attached to the motor shaft, and a photosensor to detect the basing angle. Also, each ankle has a 6axis force/torque sensor, which is used for measuring Ground
Reaction Force (GRF) (Fig. 6).
Two purposes of WABIAN-2R are (1) to develop a robotthat would be a human’s partner, and (2) to develop a humanmotion simulator. In order to realize the goal of the former,
it is indispensable to release WABIAN-2R from the laboratory into the public area. However, in addition to safety andreliability issues, legal issues are also critical challenges forbipedal walking humanoid robots to enter the human living
spaces.
4.4 WABIAN-2R and the experiment in TNC-TV building
An experiment was conducted in 2007 to apply a landing
pattern modification method adaptable to uneven terrain ina real environment based on a predictive attitude compensation control and a nonlinear compliance control equippedwith WABIAN-2R. The testing site was in the outdoor surface around the TNC-TV Building (2-3-2, Momochihamamachi, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka, Japan, 814-0001),
and the aim of the experiment was to verify WABIAN-2R’sadaptiveness in outdoor environments such as pedestrian andgravel roads [48].
The experiment was conducted as follows (Fig. 7):
1. On a bumpy surface with uneven tiles angled 2◦ (leftright-axis).

Fig. 8 WL-16 RII (Waseda Leg No.16 Refined II)

2. On a smooth surface with tiles angled 3◦ (left-right-axis).
3. On a smooth surface with tiles angled 3◦ (forward-axis)
down.
4. On a smooth surface with tiles angled 5◦ (forward-axis)
down.
5. On a smooth surface with tiles angled 5◦ (forward-axis)up.
6. On a bumpy surface.
7. On a bumpy surface with tiles angled 2◦ −5◦ (forwardaxis) down.
8. On a smooth surface with tiles.
9. The same as 8.
4.5 Multi-purpose Bipedal Locomotor WL-16RII
WL-16RII (Waseda Leg—No.16 Refined II) is a bipedal
robot with only lower-limbs and a waist that can walk independently (Fig. 8). Its upper body can be developed by users

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Int J of Soc Robotics

1, Shimokawabata, Hak-ata-ku, Fukuoka city, Fuk-uoka,
Japan, 812-0027), and Hakata Kotobuki Bridge (F-Spot; 3-1,
Shimokawabata, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka city, Fukuoka, Japan,
812-0027). The first batch of these long-term outdoor experiments was from July 7th, 2004 to December 21st, 2004 andthey are known as the world’s first bipedal robots practical
testing on public roads.

5 Case Study: Legal Impacts to Bipedal Humanoid
RobotsFig. 9 The specification of WL-16RII

Fig. 10 WL-16RII’s experimental site: downtown Fukuoka

according to their purposes. This biped locomotor would beapplicable to the welfare field as a walking wheelchair or asa walking support machine that is able to walk up and down
stairs carrying or assisting a human. In addition, in order toaccomplish a high independence in outdoor environment, its
power is driven by a battery, and 6-DOF parallel mechanisms
had adopted. WL-16RII’s gross weight is 52 kg including a
7 kg battery, and its height about 1.2 m (Fig. 9).
4.6 WL-16RII and the Experiment in Downtown Fukuoka
See Fig. 10, the testing spots were distributed in several
corners of Fukuoka City the entrance and stairway of the
shopping mall Hakata Riverain (A-Spot and B-Spot; 3-1,
Shimokawabata, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka city, Fukuoka, Japan,
812-0027), the zebra crossing and pathway of the Kawabata Shopping Street (C-Spot and D-Spot; 6-135, Kamikawabata, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka city, Fukuoka, Ja-pan, 812-0026),
the stairway of Kagami Tenmangu Shr-ine (E-Spot; 3-123

The authors conducted a patent research from the Japanese Patent Office’s (JPO) IPDL database. Under the F-term
3C007 technical theme “Manipulator-Robot”, we chose
three technical tags: LW11 “Artificial Intelligence”, MS27
“The Safety for Human” and WA13 “Bipedal”. We foundthat there are 135 patents from 1985 to 1990, 157 patentsfrom 1991 to 1995 (Honda holds 57 patents among them),and 144 patents from 1996 to 2000 (Honda and Sony holds
30 and 15 patents respectively), 689 patents from 2001 to
2005 (Sony, Honda, Toyota and Kawada holds 220, 126, 31
and 24 patents respectively), and 683 patents from 2006 to2013 (Honda, Toyota, and Sony holds 174, 146 and 55 patents
respectively).
The results could reflect a long-term trend of practical development for bipedal walking humanoids. However,humanoids entering the society need both technical and social
attention: law, ethics, and policy are indispensable. Fromthe public road experiment in Fukuoka RT special zone, we
found legal issues which are related to the real implicationof bipedal humanoid robots:(1) “Robots and Road Traffic Acts”
The problem for bipedal walking robot on public roadis related with road traffic laws, that the regulation of theautonomous robot is not designed on any Japanese law.
Therefore, local police department could not allow us to makeour humanoid robots walk on public roads. But under the RT
special zone framework, the Fukuoka City government isable to help us acquire the road use permission.
Comparing to Europe, Japan has a clear procedure forusing robots on public roads, such as the previous Measure
for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads andthe new Measure for Manned Mobility Robots’ Empirical
Experiment on Public Roads.
Paragraph 1, Article 77 of the Japanese Road Traffic Act
authorized special measures of The Measure for Facilitating Robots’ Experiment on Public Roads, enabling robots toformally be allowed for use on the road. However, the submission of the application should correspond to conditions
listed on Paragraph 2, Article 77 of the Road Traffic Act, inInt J of Soc Robotics

addition to receiving permission from local police department. In other words, in Road Traffic Act, the regulations
for robots are different from the conventional regulation forvehicles, which is an expedient measure but not recurring
way of road use regulation. On the other hand, up until 2012
in the United States, there had been three states that alreadymade special measures for Google’s unmanned vehicle on
the road: Nevada, Florida and California. However, there areseveral distinct differences between RT special zone and thespecial measures for Google’s unmanned vehicle. For example, the type of robots under the RT special zone are notlimited to wheel-triggered robots or robotized vehicles. In
fact, it allows various types of robotics locomotion, such as
bipedal locomotion. In addition, the activities are not limited
to roads but may also include shopping malls, hotels, shrines,
TV stations, etc. In brief, the RT special zone is more relevant
to regions of human activity. Therefore, the dimensions are
more complex than traffic regulations on public roads.
(2) “Robot Safety and Product Liability”
If manufacturers can prove that their products are safe andnot defective, then they can be exempt from product liabilities. A crucial one factor is whether they can produce robots
according to internationally recognized safety standards suchas ISO or IEC’s or not. Unlike current existing industrial
robots’ safety standards, the new ISO 13482 Safety Standard
for Personal Care Robots will be the first robot safety standard made by ISO international organization for standardization. This allows robots and humans to touch each other, sharethe same space and provide services to humans. The new ISO
13482 safety standard includes (1) Mobile Servant Robots,(2) Person Carrier Robots, and (3) Physical Assistant Robots
as the three main categories of safety requirements. Thus, the“new Safety for Human-Robot Co-Existence” could be realized based on the 13482 standard. However, the new ISO
13482 standard does not cover specific safety requirements
for bipedal walking humanoids, and an option may be todevelop safety strategies for humanoids’ potential risks offalling down for service robots in the future. Fortunately, both
Waseda University and AIST have research contributions on“Functional Safety” for bipedal humanoids [49,50].

tion and the Italian highway code. From the Peccioli experiment, there are several apparent conflicts between advanced
robotics and current existing laws, such as road traffic regulations, tort liability distribution, personal data protection,and criminal liability of traffic accident.
Comparing with the wheel-triggered DustCart robot
in Peccioli experiment, the walking stability of bipedal
humanoids is a big challenge, especially the technical risks
it involves. At present, the applications related to higher
level autonomy such as full autonomous navigation planningand reasoning are still very limited for bipedal humanoids[51], but lower level autonomy such as keeping balance for
bipedal walking is relatively well developed. In addition,
intelligence is also a necessary condition for applying higher
level of intelligent functions for humanoids. In history, there
has never been any bipedal walking artifacts appearing inenvironments occupied by people. Objects regulated by traffic laws only include animals, animal pulled carts, powered
vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles, etc. The issue of stability forhumanoids’ will be a new challenge for traffic regulators.
Regarding the control mechanisms of humanoids,
WABIAN-2R and WL-16RII are two bipedal robots that haveadopted walking control methods based on ZMP criteria. The
criteria can be divided into two main parts [52]:(3) “Technical Risks for Bipedal Humanoids”

1. Walking Pattern Generation: Before walking as the feed
forward control of the biped walking system, include:“modeling of the robot”, “derivation of the ZMP equations”, “computation of approximate waist motion”, and“computation of strict waist motion by iteratively computing the approximate waist motion”.
2. Real-time stabilization control during walking as the feedback control. Since our walking pattern generation algorithm outputs a stable walking pattern offline beforehand,
the robot becomes unstable due to the landing impact
according to modeling errors. An example of a modelingerror is the deflection of the surrounding structures. Thereis concern that this landing impact would be disastrous
when the robot walks under conditions that create large
deflection of structures and results in an error when walking with a heavy payload or carrying a human. Therefore,
using the virtual compliance control, we planned to moderate the landing impact and stabilize walking under suchconditions.

As mentioned before, an experiment called the European
DustBot project deployed an autonomous DustCart mobile
robot to collect domestic waste in the streets of Peccioli from
June 15, 2010 to August 7, 2010. They found several legal
barriers from the experiment. Specifically, Article 8 of theVienna Convention on Road Traffic states that “each moving
vehicle, including animals, shall have a driver.” Therefore an
autonomous mobile robot contradicts the road traffic conven-

From Fukuoka empirical experiment, a major concern
was the humanoids’ walking stability derived from a walking pattern that was established offline in advance. Therefore, its adaptiveness to real world public roads will facethe“Open-Texture Risk” [53] which includes interaction
between unknown surfaces and human errors. The former includes uneven terrains and heavily skewed surfaces; and the latter refers to actively keeping balance

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Fig. 11 WABIAN-2R walked on the bumpy surface with tiles angled2◦ −5◦ (forward-axis) down (experimental site no. 7)

Fig. 12 WABIAN-2R walked on the bumpy surface with tiles angled2◦ −5◦ (forward-axis) down (experimental site no. 7)

Fig. 13 WABIAN-2R walked on the bumpy surface with tiles angled2◦ −5◦ (forward-axis) down (experimental site no. 7)

while suffering force disturbances from people in outdoor
environments.
From the aspect of open-texture risk, the physical injuries
and damages created by autonomous robots could be seenas the outcome of complex interactions between non-linear
decision making and entities in the unstructured environment. This may cause a “liability gap” due to the difficulties
in make judgements. There was an instance at the Fukuoka
TNC TV Building where WABIAN-2R fell down on a bumpy
surface with tiles angled 2◦ −5◦ (forward-axis) downwards(Figs. 11, 12, 13). In this case, WABIAN-2R’s Walking Sta-123bility Controller dynamically adjusted its body balance basedon built-in offline walking pattern and the data received by
sensors that monitored the surrounding environment. This
resulting autonomous behavior could be seen as a “Function” of the product or a “Decision” made by WABIAN-2R’sWalking Stability Controller by different groups of lawyers.
Either or, the result is beyond its designers’ expectations andthe two ways of definition are very different from a legal
perspective.
If defining this behavior as a product misfunction, thephysical injuries or damages caused by WABIAN-2R’sWalking Stability Controller should be the manufacturer’s
liability [54]. Conventional production of industrial robots
follow ISO 12100’s “3-Step” method to ensure its safety.
Since hazards in structured environments for industrial robots
are relatively easy identify, the first two steps “inherently
safe design measures” and “safeguarding and complementary protective measures” could effectively reduce the risks
and provide “information for use” to deal with the left part ofrisks. Next-generation robots’ open-texture risk brings a newamount of difficulty in justifying the “product defects”. Risksof these robots’ behavior are difficult reduce during design
and manufacturing stages, and the manufacturers have toprovide more comprehensive information regarding usage to
avoid liability issues [55]. However, the appropriate amountof information to be provided during sales at this time is still
controversial since robotics is still in its infancy. Therefore,a guideline to draw boundaries of liability between users andmanufacturers regarding the obligation to provide productinformation is necessary.
However, if we regarded this autonomous behavior as adecision made by WABIAN-2R’s Walking Stability Controller, there is the question of who should afford the tort liability for the physical injuries or damages. As the adaptability of autonomous robots grow, the characteristic of robots
as a “Third Existence” [56] with autonomous intelligencebut lacks self-awareness will become more apparent. By the
moment that autonomous robots are fully developed, can we
consider the third existence autonomous robots as an pet,with its owner assuming all liabilities? This may be the casesince the robot itself lacks the subjectivity to afford legal
liabilities [57].
We predict that in future societies, humans and robots
can exist alongside each other. However, one of the major
disputes regarding third existence robots’ civil liability distribution falls into the interlace between whether a robot is
a product or an animal. A crucial issue is using technicalmeasures, such as a “RT Black Box” event data recorder, toassist liability distribution. There was an example in Hakata
Riverain shopping mall that WL-16RII carried a person toclimb steps (Figs. 14, 15). It could be a complex issue tojudge “who” and “which” kinds of civil liability should apply
if the WL-16RII accidentally fell down the steps and caused

Int J of Soc Robotics

In the case study, we focused on the legal impacts
to bipedal walking humanoids, pointed out “Open-Texture
Risks” and how it may bring new liability impacts to current tort laws and product liability laws, specifically on thedilemma between deciding whether a robot should be considered as a “product” or an “animal”? Finally, in addition to legislative additions including “The Robot Safety GovernanceAct”, “The Humanoid Morality Act” , and “Revisions” fordeveloping the “Robot Law”, RT special zone could be asemi-open platform for legislators to conduct the “Social
System Design” [58] with lower risks for establishing thehuman-robot coexistence society.

Fig. 14 WL-16RII carried a person to climb steps in Hakata Riverain
shopping mallAcknowledgments The authors wish to thank Ms. Diane Chiang of
the Art Center College of Design for her helpful suggestions; Mr. Shoji
Seri of the Robotics Industry Development Council (RIDC) and officials of the Economy, Tourism and Culture Bureau, New Industry andInvestment Promotion Department, Fukuoka City Hall for surveying
their non-disclosed documents to the authors.

References

Fig. 15 WL-16RII carried a person to climb steps in Hakata Riverain
shopping mallthe passenger or a third party injury. A RT Black Box will beable to record data of both the operating of the robots and thesituations of the real world, and thus, it would be easier totell the causality and the relevance of several parties within
one single accident.

6 Conclusion“Tokku” Special Zone for Robotics Empirical Testing andDevelopment is a necessary method to keep the competitiveness of RT industry through “deregulation” of special
measures. In addition, it will be an interface for robots andsociety or “shock buffer” in the long-term. RT special zone
contributes to (1) ensure machine safety, (2) prevent highlitigation risks, and (3) ease radical ethics disputes. These
could be helpful for regulators to develop their “Robot Law”
in separate countries.

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LeidenKenji Hashimoto is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Modern MechanicalEngineering, Waseda University.
He received the B.E. and M.E.
degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Waseda University, in2004 and 2006, respectively, andhe received the Ph.D. degree
in Integrative Bioscience andBiomedical Engineering fromWaseda University, in 2009. His
research interests include walking systems, biped robots, andhumanoid robots. He received
the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Japan Chapter Young Awardin 2006, and the JSME Fellow Award for Outstanding Young Engineers in 2008. He is a member of the IEEE, Robotics Society of Japan(RSJ), Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) and Societyof Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE).

Yueh-Hsuan Weng is a Visiting Scholar at CIRSFID, Facultyof Law, University of Bologna,
Coordinator of YSAiL Initiative for Robotics, Law & Policy
and the China Legal Information
Institute. He received his Ph.D.
in Law from Peking University in
2014. He was a Research Associate, Peking University Law
School (2010–2014), Visiting
Researcher, Humanoid Robotics Institute, Waseda University(2012–2013), SEN Member, EU
FP7 Project: ROBOLAW (2012–2014) and a Visiting Ph.D. Student at Department of Law, European
University Institute in 2012. His research interests include information
technology law, robot law and legal informatics.

Atsuo Takanishi is a Professor of the Department ofModern Mechanical Engineering, Waseda University and the
director of the HRI (Humanoid
Robotics Institute), Waseda University. He received the B.S.E.
degree in 1980, the M.S.E.
degree in 1982 and the Ph.D.
degree in 1988, all in MechanicalEngineering from Waseda University. His current researches
are related to Humanoid Robots
and its applications in medicine
and welfare. He is a member ofRobotics Society of Japan (a board member in 1992 and 1993, a vicepresident from 2013 to the present), Japanese Society of Biomechanisms, Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers, Japanese Societyof Instrument and Control Engineers and Society of Mastication Systems (a major board member from 1996 to the present), IEEE and othermedicine and dentistry related societies in Japan.

Yusuke Sugahara received his
Ph.D. degree in Engineering at
Waseda University in 2006. He
had served as a Research Associate at Waseda University from2003 to September 2007, andserved as an Assistant Professor at Tohoku University from2007 to 2012. From 2012 hehas been a Full-time Lecturer
at Kokushikan University. His
research interests include designand control of mechanical androbotic systems.

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