She is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries.

A Japanese firm has produced a 38 cm (15 inch) tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around $175, with a target market of lonely adult men.

Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named Ema puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its ‘love mode’.

“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive,” said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys. “She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”

While not quite up to the standard of the bikini-clad ‘fembots’ featured in the first Austin Powers film, Ema does boast the ability to walk ‘like a lady’.

Ema, which stands for Eternal Maiden Actualis-ation, can also hand out business cards, sing and dance.

Japan, home to almost half the world’s 800,000 industrial robots, envisions a $10-billion market for artificial intelligence in a decade. Sega hopes to sell 10,000 of the robots in the first year.

—Reuters