Twendy One: The Robot With The Soft Touch
Writing by Conner Flynn on Tuesday, 11 of December , 2007 at 3:17 am
Twendy One’s odd name comes from the name of its predecessor and sister bot, Wendy. As Japan braces for a labor shortage in human services, they are hoping that robots like Twendy One will help in a variety of ways. Twendy has apparently mastered the difficult art of the soft touch, which comes in handy for chores like taking toast out of the toaster without crushing it and serving you crumbs. He could probably handle an egg without breaking it. The fingertips are made of soft material and modeled after human hands. The torso even has four degrees of freedom allowing it to bend to the floor to pick up objects, or wipe spills with ease.
With the same arm length and reach as an average human female, the robot should be able to tackle a lot. The hand alone has thirteen degrees of freedom for dexterity. It’s clear that a lot of attention was paid to detail with this robot. The head is more then just a spine ornament. It has two CCD cameras and a force sensor that will detect anything touching it. So you can smack it and it will know, which makes a human feel good.
You can watch some new videos here.
[Twendy-One] VIA [RedFerret Journal]
Category: Research
- Add this post to
- Del.icio.us -
- Digg
No comments yet.