The Partner Ballroom Dance Robot (abbreviated as PBDR) is a robot developed by Department of Bioengineering and Robotics at Tohoku University, Japan, and introduced in 2005.

Presentation

Developed during six years by a team led by Kazuhiro Kosuge, professor at the Department of Bioengineering and Robotics at Tohoku University, the Partner Ballroom Dance Robot was publicly introduced at World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, which also featured some of the Actroid robots. Two units were presented, one bright pink and one pastel blue, with a male version being announced as being in development.

While the Partner Ballroom Dance Robot's lower body is a single, solid piece mounted on three wheels, its upper torso was designed to monitor, anticipate and accompany a human's partner dancing motions through the use of a force/torque sensor and ballroom dances modeling software.