Rub elbows with Robotics
Brian Zenowich will sometimes spend his days doing a little dancing arm in arm. His dance partners manage to stay in step, duplicate are flawlessly every move. The "twist" here is not the type of the dance that he does. It's the fact that Zenowich is not with man dancing. He is actually a robotics engineer for Barrett technologies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the company makes robotic arms and hands.
They are called WAM weapons and "W-A-M" is an acronym for "whole Arm Manipulator." The arms can also with detachable robot hands, be sold. Zenowich specifies how the WAM robot arms and the hands of one robot control by moving gracefully similar parts on a different robot.
"It's a very visceral experience," says Zenowich. "You're in contact with this machine and you work back and forth with the robot and it is like a dance that you with the robot does.
Zenowich operates a master robot, while the slave copies his movements at a distance. He is able to pick up a box, place a thermos with coffee at the top of the box, and the thermos in the baseball cap with top. "You get both the skill of the person, the intelligence of the person and the speed of the robot are working together to perform a task," explains Zenowich.
For robot parts to act and react like humans share, required Barrett to make them small and portable, with maximum flexibility. With the help of the National Science Foundation's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program developed his company an automated device that is like a small hockey puck. So much so that they even call it a "puck".
"A puck is a motor-controller, which in all of our products that the engines checks and moves them with so much power goes--as much torque, as we need them to go," says Zenowich. "Just as people move, we want our robots to move so they had to be small and lightweight and low power."
The puck can the arms and hands to be used in many ways. The operator can actually sense virtual objects by the touch of the robot. "When in contact with the robot, can you actually objects in 3D space: the robot that virtual environment for you will make in physical sense."
Sensing of virtual objects that can be programmed into the memory of the robot and useful for applications such as physical therapy. "The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago is use our robot to conduct rehabilitation on stroke patients to make them stronger; their brain to really understand what the aftereffects of the line. "Patients will press the arm and hitting imaginary objects that they can feel by the robotic arm.
There are other features of the arms and hands created by Barrett. Telerobotics ensures control of the arms and hands, which could be a blessing for the army. "The robot can go on distance under human control and can disarm the explosive device," says Zenowich.
Another application is "learn and play."
"It's very easy to learn our robot to make even complex movements such as writing," he says. The robot can be programmed to automatically understand what to do. "So if you have a pen in the robot's hand, it would know that it's supposed to write something with that pen."
With improved technology, robots can be used more efficiently and in a broader applications. According to SBIR program manager, Muralidharan Nair, in the past, most robots were assigned to recurring tasks in your industry with Product Assembly only recent entry into force. "However, the growing needs of the ageing of the population will dwarf this traditional industrial applications," says Nair.
And addressing of this quality-of-life needs with robots requires constant improvements in intelligence and sensing capabilities. "The NSF/SBIR program investments in robotics technology have usually made in the field of human support technologies, education, health care robotics in production, and emergency response. The program has been crucial for Barrett's success with the robotic arm, "adds Nair.
The WAM weapons use roughly the same amount of power as a light bulb and can also be used in factories. Most robotic arms don't know their own strength and accidents on assembly lines of robotic arms can be deadly crash their human counterparts. But the WAM arm is designed to know his own strength. That's because the robotic arm features with really sensitive, advanced controls, so that people are not at risk in the presence of these machines.
"If the robot in a production environment, and in the way gets accidentally, the robot is not by that person. The person is always stronger than the robot, and out of the way, the robot can push "explains Zenowich.
"As technologies developed by Barrett are leveraged by a major U.S. corporation, the investment in NSF/SBIR Barrett may have a profound effect on the u.s. economy and quality-of-life for the ageing population all over the world," says Nair. "Robotics will also be critical in health care, biomedical research and results, and surgical procedures."
Most of the WAM arms and hands are sold to research wings of companies or universities. Zenowich is impressed with how many different ways the robot weapons be used. "It is amazing to see all the applications where our robots are working directly with people and helping them on an amazing way," notes Zenowich.
By Miles O'Brien, Science Correspondent of the nation
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