Posted 05.13.2011 at 11:09 am
10 Comments
Come On, Human, I Can Take It
DLR
The robotics engineers at DLR, the German Aerospace Center, have a history of violent behavior with their mechanical creations — earlier this year, we saw them smash a robot’s hand with a hammer, and last year we watched brave engineers give a robot a knife and let themselves be stabbed. Now they’ve taken to whaling on the ‘bots with a baseball bat.
The point is to test the DLR Hand Arm System, an ultra-tough system with 52 motors and joints that can absorb energy the way human ones do. The robot’s toughness could prevent breakdowns in industrial settings, home use or any other place where a robot might bump into something.
After a whack with a baseball bat, the arm worked just as well as before, gently touching a yellow ball.
The arm consists of newly designed floating spring joints, which help dissipate energy better than a rigid structure could. They have two motors, one to control the joint and another small one to adjust its stiffness. The hand also has 38 tendons tougher than Kevlar, according to IEEE Spectrum. The tendons are attached to a spring-based elastic mechanism, which also allows the fingers to release and store energy.
IEEE Spectrum explains in more detail, reporting on the robot from the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Shanghai.
Watch the arm take a beating below, to the apparent glee of its human handler.
[IEEE]
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o_o "Let themselves be stabbed." I don't think this will be used for just house hold purposes.
im some what glad to be the first one to say this so damn those germans are crazy smashing their creations then letting themselves be stab not what i call a safe work place now i know the reason for this test but im just saying how long till they start using that trusty bat on random people off the street
What a mediocre bat swing!
Haha thats funny because in WWII the Germans needed stick grenades to gain momentum in order to throw the explosives further.
Whereas Americans preferred a more baseball like grenade for more strategical throws.
Score one for the value added by one of Americas great past times.
Hockey is da bomb though.
hethro Learn how to use punctuation.
cool, now i know not to attack a terminator with a baseball bat
f#ck off thor, this is not grammar school
The handle of a German grenade is an offense one that needs to be thrown far so not to injure the user an American "baseball" grenade was of the defense type that didnt need to have range since the user was most likely well protected. just an fyi, not b/c Germans were sissys, remember original berzerkes German origin.
A drchuck. Dont be angry. I usually dont care, but not using A SINGLE BIT of punctuation in your entire spiel is just stupid, not to mention being almost impossible to understand.
And again, hethro, learn how to punctuate.
I'm just waiting to see the arm give the guy a right hook.
Well it's good to know the T-1000 development continues unabated. As well, it's good to know the grammar Nazis are out in force.