This is just a subset of "capital investment goes down in economic downturns, and up in boom times". The local robot manufacturers are doing poorly because the local automobile industry (which is the largest driver of every industry in central Japan) is doing poorly.
After the economy recovers and A Certain Automobile Manufacturer starts selling its Ridiculously Popular Hybrid to Americans by the container ship again, the factories around here will get spun back up again. Until then everybody is just waiting it out, with a lot of belts being tightened and budgets being squeezed. The companies who are in a position to concentrate on things other than survival are doing R&D to have something to attract the inevitable tidal wave of cash that will accompany a recovery.
After the economy recovers and [Toyota] starts selling its [Prius] to Americans by the container ship again
I would not so casually assume that this will happen. The current downturn is in many respects unprecedented, and all of the long-term trend lines are bad.
People tend to look at a limited set of examples that show the US recovering first and leading the world out of the bust. But this is a bit like flipping a coin, seeing four heads in a row, and calling a 'trend.'
The government spending problems in the US are catastrophically bad, getting worse, and there is zero political will to meaningfully address them at the federal level. Demographics is working against us, and we no longer live in that post-WWII world where the US wins by default -- that is to say, for at least a couple of decades after 1950, much of the rest of the world was still 1) recovering from being bombed back into the stone age, 2) had never really gotten out of the stone age to begin with, or 3) was crawling slowly back towards the stone age by virtue of Soviet-style communism.
If the US is going to rise above this time, we're going to have to do it fair and square. We'll need to actually work to be the best place in the world to invest long-term capital.
(That is, unless the rest of the world decides it wants to continue shipping us stuff for free indefinitely. If foreign governments double-down on America, then all (short-term) bets are off.)
Keepon is a sophisticated multi-axis robot that incorporates extremely complex kinematics with pseudo-emotional responses and rhythm recognition all bundled up in a painfully cute package.
After the economy recovers and A Certain Automobile Manufacturer starts selling its Ridiculously Popular Hybrid to Americans by the container ship again, the factories around here will get spun back up again. Until then everybody is just waiting it out, with a lot of belts being tightened and budgets being squeezed. The companies who are in a position to concentrate on things other than survival are doing R&D to have something to attract the inevitable tidal wave of cash that will accompany a recovery.