Luke Skywalker had the coolest toys. From pod-racers to lightsabers, he seemed to have it all. The coolest, of course, was his droid. And C-3PO – hand-built from a mass of wires and shiny gold plating into human form – was unwaveringly loyal. He was perfect. He was…however, myth. Not anymore.

Around the world, companies and engineers have long attempted to construct robots with human abilities and appearances. Not clunky masses of steel bars and bolts, but sleek, appealing robots people want to engage and interact with.

Perhaps the most advanced of these is Honda’s ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative MObility). The first week of September hosted the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, welcoming leading global experts in the fields of robotics, futurology, and design. There, Honda encouraged attendees to interact with its ASIMO robot in an effort to enhance its vision for the ideal interaction between people and humanoid robots in the future.

The first research of its kind in Europe, the goal is the realisation of a humanoid robot that can interact effortlessly with people in a living environment and take on some of the tasks that would help make people’s lives easier.

Be it leisure, education, or science, the real humans must be able to direct the robots simply and effectively.

“People need to be able to comfortably communicate with the robot so that it can react properly to their commands and carry out their wishes when assistance is needed,” said Satoshi Shigemi, Large Project Leader of ASIMO development, Honda R&D Co., Ltd.

Also in September, NASA announced that in November it will send Robonaut 2 – designed by NASA engineers and General Motors – to the International Space Station. There, astronauts will test the robot to determine whether it can help crew perform simple tasks aboard the Space Station. The eventual goal is for Robonaut 2 – which resembles the torso, arms, hands, and head of a human – to help with the dangerous task of spacewalk repairs. To this end, the last three years of the robot’s development have been focused on improving the dexterity of the robot’s hands and fingers alone.

Perhaps the most intriguing use for humanoid robots is education. For example, France’s Aldebaran Robotics two years ago unveiled its NAO Academics robot. Its user-friendly programming environment is accessible to programming beginners and experts alike. NAO uses Choregraphe visual programming software and a 3D simulator, along with a broad array of Application Programming Interfaces, which let the software communicate with each other.

At the moment, the educational focus is on science and technology; as Aldebaran explains, the merger of sciences such as mathematics, physics, and even psychology make it a robust – and quite fun – teaching tool.

More than 700 models have already been sold to more than 200 universities, including Stanford, Harvard, Supélec, école d'Arts et Métiers, KAIST in Korea, and Tsukuba University in Japan – and it is in use in 27 countries.

“The year 2010 of robotics is the year 1980 of IT,” Bruno Maisonnier, founder of Aldebaran, said of robotics’ current position. “We’re now in a short-term time horizon; between two and five years for the first steps of the mass market. Then, by 2020, we’ll see a steady growth in the number of users, pioneers in this sector, who will want to advance and participate in this new revolution.”

That pioneering spirit is exactly what Willow Garage is counting on. Based in Menlo Park, California, the company develops and invests in open source and open platform models, seeking to lay a foundation for the use of personal robotics applications in everyday life.

“It’s very difficult to predict,” said Keenan Wyrobek of Trilliant, co-director of Willow Garage’s Personal Robotics Program. “But if you look at the trajectory of the Android OS for example, you can see how an open source approach to development can quickly overtake more proprietary methods.”