Robot Arm Punches Human To Find Pain Tolerance, Is Doing It Wrong
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Sunday, 17 of October , 2010 at 12:32 am
There’s only really one way to figure out how much is too much when it comes to the more, shall we say, direct (and maybe unintentional) forms of robot human interaction. In other words, to figure out how hard a robot can punch a human before said human a.) complains or 2.) suffers permanent injury, you kinda just have to get a robot and start punchin’ some humans. A robotics lab in Slovenia has made this happen, using a small robot arm with both blunt and sharp attachments to strike humans at varying velocities to correlate velocity with pain threshold.
“We are taking the first steps to defining the limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely interact with humans.”
The overall idea seems to be that the information gathered from this research will be used to restrict robots working around humans to moving at what is determined to be a safe velocity.
On one hand, I understand why this research is relevant and potentially important. But at the same time, I feel like limiting robots in this way is to some extent counter-productive, and is sort of akin to limiting the speed of traffic on a road when humans are walking on the sidewalk. For the humans, the idea is that you don’t just walk out into the middle of the road. And for the cars, they rely on their ability to stop quickly if a human does, for some reason, end up in their path. And I don’t see why robots couldn’t operate the same way… I mean, why restrict robots to moving at a speed where hitting humans won’t cause permanent injury when you could just program the robot to avoid hitting people entirely? I think the data that are being collected here are important, but I’m just not sure whether they should be applied in the manner that the researchers are suggesting.
Where I think it SHOULD be applied is to adaptive safety solutions like ABB’s SafeMove system. We wrote about it last year, but here’s the video:
See? Just keep the robot from hitting people in the first place, and everybody will end up much happier. It’s worth mentioning, of course, that accidents will happen… But it’s important to remember that humans are the ones programming the robots, and ultimately, any mistakes that they make can be traced back to human error.
For a slightly different take on this research, this Register article (sent to us by Aaron) offers what I can only assume is a tabloid article writer’s perspective on robot human interaction… I’d be outraged if it wasn’t so laughable.
VIA [ New Scientist ]
Comments (3)
Category: Industrial,Research
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Comment by Robotbling
Made Sunday, 17 of October , 2010 at 11:53 pm
haha… I had to stop reading that Register article before the end of the first sentence. I agree with you, and good analogy about cars vs robots.
Comment by Earthworm
Made Monday, 18 of October , 2010 at 4:49 am
That seems to directly contradict the first law of robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Yet another way we are dooming mankind! lol
Comment by flexible pvc
Made Wednesday, 23 of November , 2011 at 10:30 am
More people need to read this and understand this aspect of the story. I cant believe you’re not more popular.
