An engineering student soothes Yotaro, a robot which emulates a real baby at Tsukuba University in Japan. Yotaro's face, made of soft translucent silicon with a rosy hue, is backlit by a projector connected to a computer to simulate crying, sneezing, sleeping and smiling, while a speaker can let out bursts of baby giggles. (Agencies)

It giggles and wigglesits feet when you shake its rattle, but will get crankyand cry from too much tickling: Meet Yotaro, a Japanese robot programmed to be as fickleas a real baby.

The cuddlybaby-bot looks unearthly with a pair of luminous blue eyes and oversized cheeks, but engineering students are hoping it will teach young people the pleasures of parenting as Japan faces a demographiccrisis.

"Yotaro is a robot with which you can experience physical contact just like with a real baby and reproduce the same feelings," said Hiroki Kunimura of Tsukuba University's robotics and behavioral sciences lab north of Tokyo.

Yotaro's face, made of soft translucent silicon with a rosy hue, is backlitby a projector connected to a computer to simulate crying, sneezing, sleeping and smiling, while a speaker can let out bursts of baby giggles.

The baby changes its facial expressions and moves its arms and legs when different parts of its face and body are touched. Physical contact is detected by sensors, and Yotaro's mood changes based on the frequency of touches.

Yotaro also simulates a runny nose, with the help of a water pump that releases body-temperature droplets of water through the nostrils.

While the baby robot has a balloon-sized head and exaggerated facial features, its inventors nonetheless hope "Yotaro could help young parents to learn about raising a baby," said research team member Masatada Muramoto.

"We came up with the idea of a baby robot because we wanted to reproduce a human being's warmth and skin colour," said Kunimura.

"We decided on an infant that has not yet learnt to talk because the feelings generated towards a newborn will be the same for everyone, and because interaction is less complicated than if we had made it talk."

Japan is already famous for highly sophisticated robots, from Honda's humanoid Asimo to pancake-flipping chef Motoman to Paro the fluffy robot seal that helps ease loneliness among the elderly.

Hundreds of thousands of industrial robots toil in factories, while robo-receptionists can serve tea, greet guests or vacuumcorridors.