Max Robotics — Global Service Robot Directory + US Certification

About

Daiju Kanaoka is a robotics researcher specializing in domestic service robots, human-robot interaction (HRI), and autonomous systems for real-world environments. His work bridges the gap between controlled laboratory settings and the unpredictable complexity of everyday home environments, making him a notable contributor to the field of social robotics. Kanaoka's most recognized contribution is his team's award-winning solution to the World Robot Challenge 2020 Partner Robot Challenge (Real Space), which has garnered 23 citations and demonstrated practical approaches to tasks such as room tidying, obstacle avoidance, and object grasping. Building on this foundation, his 2024 work on unified environment-task-human understanding proposes an innovative indoor dynamic mapping and task comprehension framework that enables robots to communicate more effectively with people in dynamic settings. His more recent research explores how visual prompting techniques, such as Set of Mark, can help service robots interpret spatial object relationships — a critical capability for executing nuanced household instructions. Through his involvement with the Hibikino-Musashi@Home team, Kanaoka has also contributed open-source tools and dataset generation pipelines that support the broader robotics research community. His cumulative work reflects a steady commitment to making intelligent, adaptable service robots a practical reality.