Nov. 26, 2025

Frontier Research Center at the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan―Exhibition Summary

Toyota Motor Corporation's Frontier Research Center (Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Director Nobuhiko Koga) participated in the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan through the following events.

CUE & Tommy

Participating Event: Future Creation Robot Week

Period: Sunday, July 13, 2025 - Saturday, July 19, 2025

Venue: Event Hall South of the EXPO Exhibition Center "WASSE," Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan

Organizer: Future Creation Robot Week Executive Committee
(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, World Robot Summit Executive Committee, Japan Robot Association, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun)

Overview: The Frontier Research Center exhibited the "AI Basketball Robot CUE" and "Tommy" at the experiential and interactive event Future Creation Robot Week, which focuses on the people and technology developing the future of robots. CUE demonstrated free throws and dribbling at the venue, while Tommy, a communication robot utilizing a large language model (LLM), smoothly interacted with visitors. Through these exhibitions, we helped foster empathy toward a future society created by humans and robots.

: Scenes of CUE exhibition at Future Creation Robot Week

: CUE panel content

: Scenes of Tommy exhibition at Future Creation Robot Week

: Tommy panel content

: CUE shooting a basket

: Tommy communicating in English at Future Creation Robot Week

: The exhibitions of CUE and Tommy at Future Creation Robot Week were also introduced in the August 6, 2025 issue of Toyota Times News.

: As part of collaboration with the Consortium of Human Education for Future Robot System Integration, technical college students conducted an interview with Nomi, who is the project manager of CUE.

Mothership Project

Participating Event: Moonshot Park -Look! Touch! Feel! New Future-
Let's imagine the next generation of teru-teru bōzu^*1, together!

Period: Wednesday, August 20, 2025 - Sunday, August 31, 2025

Venue: D3 Booth inside Future Life Experience at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan

Organizer: Cabinet Office, Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Bureau / Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

Overview: The Heavy Rainfall Control Project, led by Professor Kosei Yamaguchi of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, was adopted as Goal 8 of the Moonshot Research and Development Program by JST. This project aims to reduce damage caused by isolated-convective rainstorms and line-shaped rainbands. At this exhibition, the "Offshore Curtain" is proposed as a heavy rainfall control technology, and the kite material developed in the Mothership Project is displayed as its material.

Research overview panel of the Heavy Rainfall Control Project at the introduction area of Moonshot Park (Heavy rainfall control is one of the weather control methods.)
Exhibition scene of "Let's imagine the next generation of teru-teru bōzu, together!" prologue

: Exhibition scene of "Let's imagine the next generation of teru-teru bōzu, together!" technology display. Inside a small wind tunnel, the model of the Offshore Curtain shows its effect in reducing water vapor inflow (photo center-right). The Offshore Curtain panel is the second from the right among the blue panels. The Offshore Curtain material is displayed at the lower left of the photo.

: Introduction video "TUNE (Chi-un)" about heavy rainfall control in 2050, featured in "Let's imagine the next generation of teru-teru bōzu, together!" The Offshore Curtain is introduced as one of the proposals for heavy rainfall control (around 5:05 in the video).

: Mothership Project Captain Itakura introduces the kite material jointly developed with Toyobo MC Co., Ltd., Sakai Sangyo Co., Ltd., and Toyo Cross Co., Ltd.