Bony robot borrows from Mother Nature
Published: 25 August, 2009, 11:29
Photo from eccerobot.org
TAGS: SciTech
Why try and build human-like robots from scratch if you can cash on thousands of years of evolution, which have produced a good working model – we humans. That’s the idea behind the Eccerobot project.
ECCEROBOT, which stands for “Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot”, takes mimicking human body to a new level. Unlike robots such as Honda’s ASIMO, the machine – developed by several European institutes – is not only shaped as a humanoid, but also has an internal structure similar to the bones and muscles you and I have.
The robot’s anatomy is not organic, of course. The bones are made of a thermoplastic polymer, which can be molded by hand if heated to 60 degrees Celsius, but set at room temperature. And stiff kite-lines pulled by screwdrivers serve as the muscles.
Click to enlarge
The most difficult part is controlling all this machinery. The robot only has parts from the waist up, but it takes 80 artificial muscles to move them. Scientists hope in the future to use the human-like form to "explore human-like cognitive features".
For those concerned with the rise of machines and the decline of humanity, in the demo video, Eccerobot shakes hands with one of the researchers rather then pulling a laser gun on him.
23.08.2009, 20:00
“MAKS-2009 show has been a success”The teams at the MAKS aviation and space show have finished their aerobatic displays near Moscow. Multimillion dollar deals have been done and over half a million people have attended the show. |
25.08.2009, 16:19
Butterfly wing paint shines in magnetic fieldKorean researchers have managed to produce coloring by applying magnetic field to a nanoparticle suspension. |
