Movies often portrayed robot apocalypse with robots that were as sophisticated as humans with respect to agility and dexterity. The truth is, we do not have worry about such “robot apocalypse” because, it takes a lot more than bolts and nuts, and circuit boards to make a robot as capable as humans. But we can’t say for sure if Germany’s automation company, Festo, keep making progress like this. What you see here is Festo BionicSoftArm, a robotic arm that uses compressed air (AKA pneumatic) to serve as its “muscles,” allowing it pick up a variety of objects and shapes without crushing it. And because it is soft, it won’t pose any danger to its fellow human workers.
“The BionicSoftArm owes its flexibility to its modular design, which can be combined from several pneumatic bellows segments and rotary drives. Depending on the requirements, the length of the BionicSoftArm can be varied with up to seven pneumatic actuators, thus providing maximum flexibility in working range and mobility. This makes it very easy to implement applications that are difficult to realize with a standard robot.”
Now that the risk it poses to humans are virtually non-existence, Festo said BionicSoftArm can be adapted for variety of human-robot collaboration. Well, what can we say? Welcome to the future. Keep going to find a video of the Festo BionicSoftArm robotic arm in action.
Images: Festo.
Source: boing boing.
