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MK-1 Robotic Arm Capable of Near-Human Dexterity, Dancing
An anonymous reader writes "The MK-1 Robotic Arm from HDT Global comes from a DARPA sponsored project to create a highly advanced prosthetic limb. The disco dance moves shown at the beginning of this video show off the impressive dexterity of the modular servo units that comprise the MK-1 Robotic Arm." Internet rudeness alert: the (impressive) video starts autoplaying, with sound; you have been warned.
robots can no long match my robot dance.
Does this arm also achieve sinistrality, or is it restricted to dexterity? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This is great, guys!
One wonders where the state of the art is as far as neuro-electrical interconnections.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I predict that this will cost six million dollars.
seems more like an excess heavy weapons problem, than a need for even more prosthetic s.
That's actually pretty cool. I'd like to pair it with an ABB, Kuka, or Fanuc controller and use it for something industrial, but then again, I'm an industrial nerd.
--Jim (me)
>Internet rudeness alert: the (impressive) video starts autoplaying, with sound; you have been warned.
That's a browser bug. You'd think browser vendors would have learned their lesson by now, but no.
With this new technology, a blond wig and a couple bags of silicone... future slashdotters will have dates to the prom!
And it's going to happen again, and again.
A dancing robotic arm ! Usually humans need legs to dance
How well does the MK-1 Robot Arm work away from humans?
I see that it has Near Human Dexterity..
I guess this means mars missions are out?
please inform.
Jax was MK2 not MK1....
Invert the joint and put a foot at the end. I want to see it kick ass.
It is a time of great innovation
I would hate to need to carry around a 50lb power pack to power a 2lb prosthetic arm.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Once tech like this becomes commoditized(20 years?), just like the pc and the cell phone did, it's going to put loads of people out of work. Devices like this will be used to do everything from home health aid, janitorial, picking fruit, and mining. Interesting how that timeline will coincide with a general downward trend in education in the U.S. We already see on the horizon that many "white collar" jobs(financial, creative, etc;) will be lost to software. I find it fascinating how much of a double-standard there is in the media regarding this subject. A constant clamoring about jobs, the unemployment rate, who brings jobs to whose district, etc;, yet not a whisper about things like this. Obviously tech like this will only proliferate, and eventually become "the norm", not only for use as prosthetics, but for a vast array of uses.
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What really impressed me, though, was the modularity of the arm. Presumably this would allow configurations other than human-imitating arms. One could imagine post-human configurations - whether for prosthetic purposes, extending the capabilities of a normal human, or as a stand-alone robot for specialized tasks. E.g. (off the top of my head) would 7 fingers be more useful than 5, or perhaps an arm with two (or several) elbow joints, or auxilliary fingers along the arm, or a robot with 3 or 4 arms? Or is the human arm - "perfected" by evolution - the most effective configuration possible?
Its doing the robot! HAR HAR HAR
You could put a lot of armour around that thing and have some pretty decent terminator!
A dancing robotic arm ! Usually humans need legs to dance
And here's one of the exceptions to your "usually".
If I was a human chinese worker, I would be scared of these taking over my shitty job. Us fat americans could make a factory with these and not have to pay union wages and benefits. Three shifts, limited task lighting only, and automated forklifts tied with the savings in trans oceanic shipping should bring cost in line. I would love to see an MBA do a study on that. Toss in a couple of human managers for QA purpose, maybe not.
Im part of the software team that is developing the MK2, (previously MK1), we showed the robot at AUVSI last week. I developed the low level driver communications, part of the control software for each joint, the network gateway and UI interfaces for the system using C#. I can give some vague details:
Some details about the dancing:
- 27 degrees of freedom, 120 deg/s per joint.
- Capable of generating a lot of torque within a small package (I dont think we have competitors that can currently match us)
- About 25 points with minimum jerk interpolation, had to move each joint by joint to get to the desired position:(
- We didn't have time to develop end point control or object avoidance for the demo at AUVSI, almost got socked in the face when developing the dance.
- The video is speed up by 4x, its actually much slower in the dance routine. The arms can go pretty fast, but the combined current draw of the whole system at the highest speeds will easily trip our power supply.
- This will be used primarily for bomb disposal.
- The hands were retrofitted from our MK1 system at the last moment, the system is modular enough to support interchanging all of its joints in any configuration.
The Prosthetic Limb:
- Mostly APL Higher Level Control Algorithms,
- About the weight of a human arm.
- The amount of complexity in the thumb alone is equivalent to the whole upper arm
- The system is designed to run off a battery pack in the arm itself, so no car battery strapped to the poor guy using this. At full speed, it will kill the battery within minutes, normal operation should yield several hours.
- the whole system feels realistic when its being controlled with the cyber glove at APL. One of the engineers was able to feed himself m&ms using a spoon.
- Its currently being tested on a monkey to develop better control algorithms
What was really interesting was the servos that have force feedback built in. This means that it can bump into something and detect that before continuing along the way possibly hurting someone nearby. Standard servos do not have this feedback mechanism which is why most medium to large robots these days are dangerous to be around. Willow Garage's PR2 has arms that use a different approach but are designed to allow interaction with humans and other delicate materials.
NoScript kept it from playing until I clicked.
Browser add-ons are q00l.
It depends. If robots take up some of the menial labor, humans are afforded more time to work on other problems. The calculator might have replaced pure number crunchers, but that doesn't mean people don't practice math anymore. There are still physicist, mathematicians, and engineers. Odds are, if I robot assistant is developed, we'll have robot repair shops, programming centers, and robot insurance; while having fewer fruit pickers and maids. Humans will probably be replaced for certain tasks, but since we define society as a group of humans, we will probably never be rid of one another.
I tend to agree with you about who will be displaced first, but I don't think we have to anticipate more widespread adoption of robots for a long, long time. We will probably have to cross the uncanny valley in one quantum leap before society in general will accept robots in the roles of humans. As you suggest, roles that keep robots out of sight/out of mind will be about the only places robots can be effectively deployed until they are indistinguishable from us. Labor intensive tasks like agriculture and domestic maintenance, which you mentioned, would be where I would target my robotic R&D dollars right now. Human-level replacement prostheses are truly nice, but my personal uncanny valley is pretty steep, and pretty wide. I wouldn't want to shake hands with a prosthesis, if I knew before hand (not trying to be punny) it was artificial.
Actually, it's slow. 120 degrees per second according to the video (3 seconds for a complete revolution). That's not fast enough to wave, let alone kick.
Looks like it could self assemble.. meaning several modules could be fit thru a fairly narrow diameter pipe in a snakelike configuration. I'm thinking either through a bore hole, or perhaps entering a building via the sewage system.. and reconfigure itself once situated. I mean really, how many people lock their toilets?
You get the picture.
A really amazing example of irrationality overwhelming rationality. You would refuse to shake hands with a person who has a prosthetic hand when you know they have a prosthetic hand simply because they have a prosthetic hand.
NASA has funded a similar robot. This article shows the modularity of their robot better.