Posted 01.25.2011 at 5:30 pm
7 Comments
Super-Strong Robotic Hand
DLR
Good news everyone! German robotics researchers have built a hyper-strong hand that can withstand hammer blows! Come and shake the hand that will someday wring our species' collective neck.
This hand and its high-tech robophalanges come to you courtesy of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.). For those of you entertaining visions of robopocalypse, don't get your hopes up — each of these puppies costs somewhere between €70,000-€10,000, so any would-be Terminators or Cylons would have to hold a lot of bake sales. The DLR hand is one of the most durable robotic hands ever built and was specifically built tough for jobs that might ding it up. As IEEE Spectrum describes:
The hand has the shape and size of a human hand, with five articulated fingers powered by a web of 38 tendons, each connected to an individual motor on the forearm.
The main capability that makes the DLR hand different from other robot hands is that it can control its stiffness. The motors can tension the tendons, allowing the hand to absorb violent shocks. In one test, the researchers hit the hand with a baseball bat-a 66 G impact. The hand survived [...]
The hand has a total of 19 degrees of freedom, or only one less than the real thing, and it can move the fingers independently to grasp varied objects. The fingers can exert a force of up to 30 newtons at the fingertips, which makes this hand also one of the strongest ever built.
Additionally, the hand can catch heavy balls, adjust its level of stiffness to accomplish tasks that require a daintier touch, and snap its fingers. That's right, we're looking at the next star of the future's all-robot revue of West Side Story.
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just because someone who spends all day in a lab cant bust it with a hammer, doesn't mean it's indestructible. (for example, if I shot it in the right places, it might cease to work)
@ my name here
no one said it was indestructible. it looked like they were actually very careful as to where and how they were hitting it.
OK, I had no idea what 30 newtons meant. So I found a JSTOR article (Ramsay et al., 1995) that reports human thumb to index finger pinch force peak at 12 newtons. So if this was a similar measure, then nearly 3x human force.
Ok, it can take taps from like an archeologist's or jewelers hammer, but I kinda thought I'd see someone who looks kinda like me; who has done plenty of framing, roofing...you know, beatin on stuff. If it's worth 70K euros, I figure I'd do about 350K euros worth of em in at a shot with a regular 28oz ripping hammer with a waffle head. All seriousness aside, it does look like the tech is finally starting to grow up some, and it's been a long hard study to get here. Having also done lots of manufacturing and being able to machine pretty much anything, I understand well the capabilities of the hand. If this were joined with the efforts of two or three of the other groups that are in the news lately, they could get to the dexterity level of a, say, veteran racing mechanic who can do two operations at the same time with both hands in a couple years. Like one or two fingers holding, finger and thumb turning. The great thing about a robotic hand is that it's strength is only limited by it's material. Instant torque as specified on demand. Wrenches? We don't need no stinking wrenches! Common Torx flip down from over the tops of the fingers on one hand, and Allen's from the other. We are tokkin bout androids here, right? Basically a young Austin Coil for every race team? Mountain motor encyclopedia held in RAM, NHRA regs as BIOS so it can't be made to cheat?
@quasi44, I'd buy that! I can always use someone to help around the shop. Or, in this case, something.
I Would love to just go violent on that hand. I hate robots soooo much...
In the video sequel, they give the hammer to the robot hand.