/ News
iRobot Smashes Its New Robotic Hand With Baseball Bat
What's up with roboticists and baseball bats? Last year, German researchers showed off their tough new robot arm by smashing it with a bat. Not to be outdone, iRobot now turns to the same "stress test" technique to prove that its robot hand can take some serious punishment and come out unscathed. Watch:
iRobot built this hand as part of the DARPA Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program. The model in the video is actually an early prototype. The current version will be attached to the DARPA ARM robot, which different research groups will use to develop and test new manipulation strategies.
What makes the iRobot hand different from other designs is that it is soft and compliant—and yet robust and dexterous. Traditional robot hands are rigid, so you need to control their position with great precision to grasp objects. Move the hand too much against a hard object like a table and you can break its joints and electronics. That doesn't happen with iRobot's hand. To pick up a credit card from a table, for example, the hand pushes its fingers against the table, forcing them to bend and grip the card.
"Our hand actually uses contact with the environment to manipulate various things," says Chris Jones, director for research advancement. "We leverage compliance, so we don't depend on expensive sensors to position the hand."
Because it's soft and compliant, the hand can also take hard blows without suffering damage. Jones explains that the fingers are made of soft, rubber-like polymers. The researchers get the shape they need by using molds, and while fabricating the fingers they embed tactile sensors and other electronics into the soft material. The actuation mechanism uses motors to pull cables inside the fingers. The cables are just standard fishing lines, Jones says, and if they snap you can easily replace them.
The iRobot hand is not only able to pick up small objects like a key, but it's also strong enough to hold a payload of up to 22.7 kilograms (50 pounds). Whether it's better than other robot hands such as the Barrett Hand, the Sandia Hand, Willow Garage's Velo Gripper, or the Robotiq Adaptive Gripper, among others, only time will tell, as the DARPA ARM and other research programs put these designs to the test, which we sure hope includes smashing them with bats.
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/irobot-smashes-its-new-robotic-hand-with-baseball-bat
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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