When Takanori Shibata first began robotic research 14 years ago, he wasn't interested in inventing a robot to help with jobs around the house. He wanted to design something that would improve the quality of people's lives.

Shibata thought about animals and how they enriched the lives of the people who interact with them.

"I thought about what we have in our lives and I thought about pets. People don't expect any work from pets, but they like animals and pets," he said on the sidelines of Tech Epoch, a program sponsored by New York's Japan Society to demonstrate cutting-edge Japanese technology.