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DARPA Goes Robtic
The U.S. military is funding research for a mind-controlled prosthetic arm that is surgically implanted into the user’s body.
“This is the most advanced arm in the world,” Johnny Matheny, who lost his left arm to cancer in 2008 and demonstrated the robotic arm for DARPA, said in a statement. “This one can do anything your natural arm can do, with the exception of the Vulcan V. But unless I meet a Vulcan, I won’t need it.”
Matheny showed the arm during Demo Day for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the military’s research unit, which was held Wednesday at the Pentagon. The device was developed at the Research and Exploratory Development Department at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
The robotic arm is attached to a piece of metal that is surgically implanted into the bone of the user’s arm in technique called osseointegration. Matheny is the first person in the U.S. to have undergone the procedure, according to the U.S. Army.
The Army called the system a “true man/machine interface.”
The mind-controlled aspect of the arm comes into play via the nerves and muscles in what remains of the user’s arm. Those tissues send signals to the robotic arm, which responds to them as a real arm would.
“This is part of the Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, where we set out to restore near-natural upper extremity control to our military service members who have lost limbs in service of our country,” said Dr. Justin C. Sanchez, director of the Biological Technologies Office at DARPA, in a statement. “The goal is to control the arm as naturally as possible.”
The robotic arm, according to Sanchez, has the same size, weight, shape and grip strength as an adult biological arm.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/darpa-shows-off-mind-controlled-robotic-arm.html
Can Robots Run On (NH2)2CO?
November 19, 2013 by admin
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Scientists have discovered a way to power future robots using an unusual source — urine.
Researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Bristol collaborated to build a system that will enable robots to function without batteries or being plugged into an electrical outlet.
Based on the functioning of the human heart, the system is designed to pump urine into the robot’s “engine room,” converting the waste into electricity and enabling the robot to function completely on its own.
Scientists are hoping the system, which can hold 24.5 ml of urine, could be used to power future generations of robots, or what they’re calling EcoBots.
“In the city environment, they could re-charge using urine from urinals in public lavatories,” said Peter Walters, a researcher with the University of the West of England. “In rural environments, liquid waste effluent could be collected from farms.”
In the past 10 years, researchers have built four generations of EcoBots, each able to use microorganisms to digest the waste material and generate electricity from it, the university said.
Along with using human and animal urine, the robotic system also can create power by using rotten fruit and vegetables, dead flies, waste water and sludge.
Ioannis Ieropoulos, a scientist with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, explained that the microorganisms work inside microbial fuel cells where they metabolize the organics, converting them into carbon dioxide and electricity.
Like the human heart, the robotic system works by using artificial muscles that compress a soft area in the center of the device, forcing fluid to be expelled through an outlet and delivered to the fuel cells. The artificial muscles then relax and go through the process again for the next cycle.
“The artificial heartbeat is mechanically simpler than a conventional electric motor-driven pump by virtue of the fact that it employs artificial muscle fibers to create the pumping action, rather than an electric motor, which is by comparison a more complex mechanical assembly,” Walter said.