A small company turns to mythical beasts after Sony corners the market on robot dogs. When its infrared sensors detect someone approaching, it stands alert and menacing with its eyes flashing blue. The robot Banryu, or "guard dragon,'' is 90 centimeters tall, weighs 35 kilograms and is actually quite scary. With more than 50 built-in sensors, Banryu is capable of picking up changes in its surroundings and transmitting an alarm to its master's cellphone. A camera on its back can swivel 360 degrees and send images of the room around it. It can also sense the smell of burning and detect temperatures above 50 degrees. The father of this mechanical guard-dog substitute is Yoichi Takamoto, president of Tmsuk Co., which has been working in collaboration with Sanyo Co. ``If we tried to make it like a dog, Sony had already registered that idea,'' Takamoto says. ``But nobody has ever seen a real dragon, so we were free to design it as we wished. All the models we'd made before this were basically prototypes, so we didn't even give them names, just numbers. Banryu would have been model number seven, but it's a commercial product, so we gave it a name for the first time.'' At 1.98 million yen each, the robotic dragons cost as much as some automobiles. But despite the hefty price tag, 30 have already been sold through the Internet to a range of customers, from businesses looking to beef up office security to couples concerned about the safety of elderly parents. In contrast with large companies such as Sony Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which are sparing neither capital nor labor in the race to develop a fully functioning household robot, Tmsuk is a tiny venture of only 19 people, based in Kita-Kyushu. ``They (Sony and Honda) are spending around 10 billion yen each on robots. There's no way we can match that,'' Takamoto says. ``We're machine makers, so we're committed to practicality at all costs. If they make robots that mimic humans or animals, we could never overtake them, so I want to create robots that can do things people can't do rather than just imitate humans.'' And he's confident Tmsuk can muster the technology to compete with the big players on its own terms. One advantage is the number of small and medium-sized businesses producing high-tech parts in the area, he says. ``There's the whole spectrum of companies in Kyushu churning out parts for bigger manufacturers. With Banryu, all the parts except batteries and motors come from factories in Kyushu or Shimonoseki (in Yamaguchi Prefecture),'' Takamoto explains. Takamoto inherited Tmsuk from his father, but the company was started by his grandmother. Tmsuk at first specialized in the manufacture of conveyor belts for scaling and filleting fish aboard trawlers. One of its major customers was seafood giant Nippon Suisan Co. But Tmsuk was plunged into crisis when the fishing industry fell on hard times. The company responded by turning itself into a maker of processing equipment for onigiri (rice balls) and other food products. In 1993, when the company's bottom line had improved sufficiently, its head office was rebuilt. Then, to showcase its technological prowess, the company began its quest to create a robot that could guide visitors around the new premises. Takamoto started the robot project as a hobby more than anything else, but he kept coming up with new ideas of what the robots should be able to do, steadily adding more functions. He gave the second model, created in 1996, the power of speech. It could utter 35 different phrases in pure Osaka dialect, including ``chotto mattokya'' (wait a moment), but companies that purchased it found the noisy machine a nuisance and shut it away in storerooms. Undaunted, Takamoto produced a third model in 1997 that could be remotely controlled through the PHS mobile phone system. Somehow it even got itself arrested when the company was conducting tests to see if it could sell ice cream in a shopping center. In 1999, the fourth model had progressed to the point where it could hold a paper cup. Eleven were sold to universities and research institutes. But despite this progress, Tmsuk came close to abandoning its robot projects before the days of Banryu. Though the company had total annual sales of 600 million yen, it was pouring more than 400 million yen a year into robots. By the time the third-generation robot was released, some employees were already beginning to mutter doubts about the sense of continuing. Just when Takamoto himself had reached the conclusion he would have to give up his dream, a local government official came up with a potential solution. ``A gentleman from the Fukuoka prefectural Industrial Technology Center came to me and said: `You're doing something really interesting here. The prefecture will support you, so why don't you form a separate company?''' Takamoto recalls. ``Still, I thought there wouldn't be anyone around to capitalize such a new company. I tested the water by asking a few friends, and they came on board-60 people altogether, some local entrepreneurs I'd been doing business with for years, the president of Nippon Suisan and so on. They all put up their own cash. Then came Omron and Sanyo, and even some investment companies from the United States. Ultimately, we collected 800 million yen.'' A subsidiary was set up in 2000, and Takamoto called his father out of retirement to take over again as president of the parent company while he spent more time on his pet project. The guard dragon consists of more than 600 parts, almost all procured from small and medium-sized businesses in Kyushu. Kita-Kyushu and the neighboring city of Fukuoka were designated a ``special robot area'' last year. Planners believe that, as the proportion of seniors in the total population increases and the birthrate continues to decline, the market for robots to help in the home will expand to 3 trillion yen in 2010 and will rival that for automobiles by 2020. Another use for Takamoto's robots is in rescue and cleanup operations following a disaster. ``On Jan. 11, we launched Enryu (Aid Dragon) to help out at disaster scenes. Developed in conjunction with the University of Kyoto and other bodies, it can operate at the site of disasters such as a nuclear accident or a volcanic eruption, or it can clear away rubble from collapsed buildings,'' Takamoto says. ``We expect to have it operational this year. We're also in the process of developing, with Waseda University, a robot that can walk on two legs with a person riding on its back. Once that becomes a reality, it'll be able to help out in hospitals and homes for the elderly.'' A once-expensive hobby is gradually turning into a highly profitable business. ``We can't be bringing up the rear any more, can we?'' Takamoto quips. IHT/Asahi