HUMANS are one step closer to being replaced by machines after Japanese researchers unveiled a model they hope could lead to humanoid menial workers.  Kawada Industries and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science (AIST) this week revealed the HRP-4 robot they hope will lead to easing greying Japan’s looming labour shortage. "We designed a working robot in the image of a lean b More..ut well-muscled track-and-field athlete," said Noriyuki Kanehira, robotic systems manager at Kawada at a press conference to unveil the blue-and-white robot. Designed to help researchers develop models that could replace humans in repetitive manual labour, the latest "athlete" model in a near 10-year-old series updates the feminine, catwalk-strutting, karaoke-singing HRP-4C "It is Japan's urgent task for the early 21st century to develop robots that could carry out simple, repetitive works," it said. "(We need) to complement the workforce in a country that is rapidly ageing with fewer and fewer children." At the press conference the robot stood on one foot, twisted its waist, struck poses, walked in accordance to given voice commands and moved its head to track objects. The HRP-4, standing at 151cm tall, boasts joints that move more freely than its predecessors and can run a range of separately-developed software applications, its makers said. Kawada and AIST will start selling the robot to universities and research institutes in Japan and abroad from January 2011. The price tag for what is described as a "low cost" model is 26 million yen ($323,000) each. Its creators hope to sell three-to-five units a year.