The video is showing a standalone Shadow Hand connected to a standalone CyberGlove which does the control. You can drive the Hand from any source of position data you want to generate - teleoperating it with a CyberGlove is just one of the options for control. So it's a robot that can be used as a waldo.
The Hand in the video in the OP was an Air Muscle hand, with 40 muscles in the forearm pulling on the tendons.
The newest version replaces pairs of muscles with single motors, with integrated force sensing to replicate the compliance of the Air Muscle.
The Hand has two of the wrist movements, but not the forearm rotation.
Mainly because most of the time it gets bolted onto a robot arm that provides that movement already.
We've been doing some work with the European Space Agency looking at how you might use something derived from this on their hardware... but it's a long way away from flying!
Not quite sure why it's a better robot Hand - Barrett have been around for some time, and their three-fingered system is good, but it's an interesting gripper. The people in the article are the customers, not the hand developers. Still, interesting research is interesting research
ObDisclaimer - Shadow does five-fingered hands...
RobotCub is particularly interesting because all the design is being posted on their website, so anyone with a spare 200kEuro can build one.
It's an EU-funded project, and it's good to see government money widening the pool of Open Source stuff - see www.robotcub.org
"fluidic muscle" is the name Festo use. In this case, the fluid is air, and the muscles contract when air fills them, so it's fair to say it's more like an animal muscle than the spider limbs, which are more hydraulic.
Fair enough. We've got good results on sensor-less systems by tuning the opening time of the valves to give an accurate response, which may save you a valve or two.
You cannot do that with a set of standard valves. You're using one of: the wrong valves, the wrong method of driving them, the wrong pneumatic layout. Precise pneumatic control isn't too hard but it is a specialised skill set. We get really good control by using good, fast valves, mounting them close to the muscle, and driving them directly.
Why go with mere "air muscles", when aerogels could offer a much more highly structured, functional material? First reason: Festo are a pneumatics company. Getting their sales guys to acknowledge the existence of an actuator that isn't a cylinder is apparently near-impossible.
Second reason: electro-active polymers are now almost strong enough to give a child a run for their money. Air muscles will pull hundreds of kilos without problems
> They were building a very ambitious Biped Walker out of wood
We moved to building hands a while ago, on the grounds that a robot with legs can walk around, but a robot with hands can actually do something.
Some years back, Festo started wandering round our website every week. Then they came out with their muscles - which, of course, they had to give a different name...
Now, they've produced something we did, ooh, 6 years ago? Still, the marketing is pretty slick.
Anyway, we've got hands to build...
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The video is showing a standalone Shadow Hand connected to a standalone CyberGlove which does the control. You can drive the Hand from any source of position data you want to generate - teleoperating it with a CyberGlove is just one of the options for control. So it's a robot that can be used as a waldo.
The Hand in the video in the OP was an Air Muscle hand, with 40 muscles in the forearm pulling on the tendons. The newest version replaces pairs of muscles with single motors, with integrated force sensing to replicate the compliance of the Air Muscle.
The Hand has two of the wrist movements, but not the forearm rotation. Mainly because most of the time it gets bolted onto a robot arm that provides that movement already.
We've been doing some work with the European Space Agency looking at how you might use something derived from this on their hardware... but it's a long way away from flying!
Isn't that why we moved the end of the Eurostar?
I thought it was because there were things rats wouldn't do...
In general, we copied nature where possible, but sometimes engineering practicalities overruled us.
So there's a curl on the little finger, but the palm itself is rigid. Making the palm flexible implies a lot more connectors on the electronics...
Not quite sure why it's a better robot Hand - Barrett have been around for some time, and their three-fingered system is good, but it's an interesting gripper. The people in the article are the customers, not the hand developers. Still, interesting research is interesting research ObDisclaimer - Shadow does five-fingered hands...
RobotCub is particularly interesting because all the design is being posted on their website, so anyone with a spare 200kEuro can build one. It's an EU-funded project, and it's good to see government money widening the pool of Open Source stuff - see www.robotcub.org
We seem to collect people with the same names...
"fluidic muscle" is the name Festo use. In this case, the fluid is air, and the muscles contract when air fills them, so it's fair to say it's more like an animal muscle than the spider limbs, which are more hydraulic.
Fair enough. We've got good results on sensor-less systems by tuning the opening time of the valves to give an accurate response, which may save you a valve or two.
> They were building a very ambitious Biped Walker out of wood We moved to building hands a while ago, on the grounds that a robot with legs can walk around, but a robot with hands can actually do something.
Some years back, Festo started wandering round our website every week. Then they came out with their muscles - which, of course, they had to give a different name... Now, they've produced something we did, ooh, 6 years ago? Still, the marketing is pretty slick. Anyway, we've got hands to build...