Robot Can Change Flashlight Batteries

A Sandia National Laboratories research team has adopted a method by building a

modular, plastic proto-hand whose electronics system is basically produced from

parts present in cell phones.

The Sandia Hand is still able to perform with a top level of finesse and get a robot, and is actually even able to replacing the batteries

in a small flashlight.

It is anticipated to cost about $10,000, a fraction of the $250,000 price ticket for

getting a state-of-the-art robot hand today.

What Goes Into Making The Hand

The researchers could actually scrimp in numerous clever ways.

"One was scouring world for the most cost effective, highest-performing components

like motors, gears, etcetera," says Curt Salisbury, this project's principal

investigator.

"Another was to build the complete electronics system from commodity parts,

especially those found in cell phones."

We also moved from metal structural elements to plastic, being careful to style the

structures so the plastic would offer adequate strength.

The Hand's current incarnation has only four fingers, including very similar to an

opposable thumb.

"The truth is that for a wide variety of manipulation tasks that humans do, four

fingers is all you need to do," Salisbury says.

Still, future iterations no matter what the Hand could have several fingers as well as

arrangement patients fingers without adding much cost or complexity.

The Sandia Hand's fingers are modular and affixed to the hand frame via magnets.

This gives the researchers the pliability to style, interchangeable appendages tipped

with screwdrivers, flashlights, cameras together with other tools.

The fingers can also be invented to detach automatically to stay clear of damage in the event the hand hits a wall or another solid

object too hard.

The researchers say the hand can even be manipulated to retrieve and reattach a fallen

finger.

How The Hand Is Controlled

While the Hand might someday be programmed to operate autonomously, right

now a human controls the device using probably a sensor-laden glove or a basic

control panel.

The glove is a custom design that reads a person's hand posture and attempts to copy

that with the robot hand, Salisbury says.

The communication protocol at once this is definitely USB cable, but may very well be

upgraded to incorporate any wireless communications approach, he adds.

The team's goal is to produce a glove that costs about $1,000.

Sandia researchers are trying upgrades to the Hand, including a palm with two

embedded cameras that convey stereo images to a human operator in the course of

the grasping sequence.

"Afterward," Salisbury says, "we hope this kind of technology will move to field tests."

There will be videos of the Sandia Hand demonstrating quite a few capabilities, including lifting a suitcase, choosing a telephone handset and, perhaps most

impressively, dropping a AA battery right into a flashlight.