One robot in development at an Atlanta laboratory is commanded by humans with an ordinary laser pointer, the same kind used by lecturers presenting slide shows. Here, though, the pointer tells a robot what to fetch. Shine its bright light on a dropped medicine bottle on the floor, and the robot will go to the spot, retrieve the bottle and roll back with it.The robot doesn’t yet say, “Your medicine bottle, sir,” but that may also happen someday, said Charlie Kemp, an assistant professor and roboticist in the department of biomedical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He created the robot with support from graduate students and colleagues.
This dexterous robot may be especially helpful in assisting people with severely restricted mobility — for instance, those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Professor Kemp was inspired to create the robotic system partly because of what he had learned about helper monkeys. These animals fetch objects for quadriplegics who hold laser pointers in their mouths and shine them on items they want retrieved.
He named his one-armed robot El-E (pronounced “Ellie”), because, among other reasons, her lifting style reminded him of an elephant using its trunk.
El-E’s novel interface, the laser pointer, is important because it simplifies a tricky, longstanding problem basic to getting a robot to fetch, said Gaurav S. Sukhatme, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, who has played with El-E at the Atlanta lab.
גירסת הדפסה
סגן המנהל
מפקח
Winner
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מומחה
