Robots can imitate the movements of a person’s hands, but it is very difficult for them. For teaching mechanisms for humanoid movements, developers complement them with analogues of muscles, ligaments, nerves, joints and bones. However, scientists from the University of Cambridge have chosen a different path. They equipped a robotic limb with a minimum number of details and looked at what she could do. As a result, she was able to play well on the synthesizer.
The hand was printed on the 3D printer Stratasys Connex 5000. The raw materials were harsh and soft materials that copy the ligaments and bones of a person. The brush received in this way was attached to the UR5 robot, which, according to scientists, was the best option in this case. In addition, it was not difficult to program the robot in Python.
Since the brush does not bend the parts, the robot pressed on the synthesizer keys, simply turning in the area of the wrist. To obtain additional flexibility in the work, experts changed the stiffness of the ligaments located between the “bones”. Despite the inability to bend his fingers, the robot managed to play the simplest melodies. Information about the force of pressing was sent to a computer Arduino.
The study participant Josie Hughes noted that an increase in the number of movements of such a passive structure will open up new prospects for robots. They will need much less energy, because they do not perform complex commands and do not activate in detail the developed mechanisms.
Source: Newatlas.com
Robots can imitate the movements of a person’s hands, but it is very difficult for them. For teaching mechanisms for humanoid movements, developers complement them with analogues of muscles, ligaments, nerves, joints and bones. However, scientists from the University of Cambridge have chosen a different path. They equipped a robotic limb with a minimum number of details and looked at what she could do. As a result, she was able to play well on the synthesizer.
The hand was printed on the 3D printer Stratasys Connex 5000. The raw materials were harsh and soft materials that copy the ligaments and bones of a person. The brush received in this way was attached to the UR5 robot, which, according to scientists, was the best option in this case. In addition, it was not difficult to program the robot in Python.
Since the brush does not bend the parts, the robot pressed on the synthesizer keys, simply turning in the area of the wrist. To obtain additional flexibility in the work, experts changed the stiffness of the ligaments located between the “bones”. Despite the inability to bend his fingers, the robot managed to play the simplest melodies. Information about the force of pressing was sent to a computer Arduino.
The study participant Josie Hughes noted that an increase in the number of movements of such a passive structure will open up new prospects for robots. They will need much less energy, because they do not perform complex commands and do not activate in detail the developed mechanisms.
Source: Newatlas.com