MONKEY BUSINESS
This robot arm controlled by a monkey brain has a
whopping seven degrees of freedom, but that doesn’t
seem to phase the monkey much, as it deftly uses brain
control to grasp a knob with the arm and receive a
tasty reward.
The monkey relies on two brain implants (in the
arm and hand areas of its motor cortex) to interpret
nerve impulses and uses them to control the arm. The
hope is (as least, as this technology applies to people
with disabilities) to make the controller non-invasive,
and some of the technology is sort of there. Sort of.
Perhaps more importantly, this experiment shows just
how capable and adaptable a brain is. Well, most brains.
A LEG UP
AIST’s bipedal humanoid robot HRP- 2 Promet was one
of the robots on hand at the Japanese pavilion at the
Shanghai World Expo 2010. (The robot shows its balance by
standing on one foot.) A big part of Japan’s display at the
expo involved robots designed to help people; robots like
Toshiba’s ApriPoco that interact with home appliances
through verbal commands, to robots that can move heavy
objects.
CARS FOR BOTS
This 10 m ( 32 ft) tall robot statue reminiscent
of the Transformers films was built using an old
truck and other recycled parts (total cost was
$44,000 USD).
HEAD CASE
Vstone designed this robot called RYOMA (Robot Yell
Ohasuta Miracle Action) specifically for an appearance on
Ohasuta (The Super Kids Station). It’s based on the VisiON 4G
which won Team Osaka its fourth consecutive victory at
RoboCup in 2007, with one key difference: the head has been
super-sized! The head alone weighs 1 kg and the omnidirectional sensor on top isn’t actually functional, but the eyes do
light up with colorful LEDs. With three degrees of freedom in
its neck “Ryo-chan” is capable of natural and cute expressiveness
as it looks around. Despite its extra large head and the added weight, the standard walking gait works fine.
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