/ News
HERMES robot and operator can share life-saving moments (w/ video)
A robot's task performance can be tuned to work in dangerous disaster settings when controlled by a human master, in a project under the watchful eyes of an MIT team. Robot researchers from MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering are behind a robot approach which is capable of keeping the robot's balance and completing tasks.
A human operator, a special suit and goggles are the ingredients— along with the robot. As Kelsey Atherton described HERMES in Popular Science, we are looking at "a humanoid robot, steered by a human pilot strapped into a remote-control exoskeleton, with built in reflexes."
MIT researchers discussed how the robot works in a video of HERMES in action. They referred to HERMES as a humanoid platform which they set out to work on for deployment in disaster scenarios. The idea was that, in such scenarios, human deployment can go just so far and, when it is too dangerous for humans, the goal was to deploy something that could do necessary work.
Joao Ramos, Mechanical Engineering, said, "The way I like think about this project is that we're trying to put the human's brain inside the robot. We want to take advantage of what humans can do."
What Ramos means is reflected in an earlier report this year which appeared in MecEConnects, which is news from MIT's Mechanical Engineering department.
HERMES was designed to mimic the movements of its human operator through tele-operation and in return to share its vision and physical "feelings" – its proprioception – with the person.
Alissa Mallinson of MecEConnects referred to their work as a "mapping of bodies between the robot and human" and their challenge was in finding a way to share these feelings of force and balance.
Another kind of balance has been at play—the operator plays the brain while the robot plays the brawn. PhD student Albert Wang told her those on-the-spot decisions that need to be made in crisis situations calls for both qualities.
The type of quick thinking needed in emergency situations cannot be easily programmed. Wang said at the time that the team decided that connecting the robot to a human operator was "the easiest way to incorporate the kind of intelligence we need. It would take a computer a long time and a lot of programming to come to the quick conclusions that humans come to almost instantaneously through good instincts."
The human mind, he added, can work more quickly and at a more sophisticated level. "Instead of sending a robot in with its own intelligence, we just feed all this information back to the person. And if we can achieve this, you could say this is the loop closure rate: It would happen so quickly that the human doesn't even subconsciously think about commanding the robot. They are just feeling something and reacting to it. It's so instantaneous, it's almost an extension of themselves."
Their method involves the use of a full-body suit worn by the human operator; balance sensations from the robot are fed back to the human as forces on the waist. Wearing the suit, the human can move arms and legs, and has handle controllers with a couple of buttons the person can push. The buttons control the robot's hands. For grasping or releasing, they control the force –the robot can grip firmly or loosely or let go.
A camera resides in the robot's head, said Wang, and that vision is fed back to the operator wearing vision goggles. When the human wants to do more delicate tasks, said Wang—things that require strict positioning—he can use the goggles and accomplish more precise hand manipulations.
Ramos noted that at present the actions taken by the robot are commanded by the human, but they want to implement some intelligence in the robot. Wang said in the future they want to merge some level of autonomous control along with the human intelligence.
Source: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-hermes-robot-life-saving-moments-video.html
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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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