Disney is famous not only for its animated films and films, but also for the Disney Research laboratory, in whose walls talented engineers work. One of their latest projects is called "Human-Safe Telepresence Robot Equipped with Hybrid Hydrostatic Drives." Behind this seemingly intricate name lies an attempt by Disney engineers to create a mechanical avatar through which one person can communicate with another at a distance and without risk of harming him.
The main problem in robotics, with which engineers have been struggling for years, is the too pronounced mechanics of the movements of the manipulators. Disney Research developers approached the issue very seriously and equipped their robot with joints based on hybrid drives that use both pneumatics and hydraulics. Such drives can have up to 10 degrees of freedom, but what you see in the video below are drives with only 4 degrees of freedom. They also equipped the mechanism with a stereo camera, thanks to which the operator can see the world around him through the eyes of a robot. To do this, it is enough for a person to put on a VR-headset Oculus Rift. Turning his head from side to side, the operator will be able to rotate the head of his avatar, looking around.
The operator interacts with the levers that remotely control the robotic arms. For a complete sense of presence, tactile feedback is given to these levers, thanks to which a person feels great when the robot's hand touched any solid surface or even the skin of a living person. The accuracy of the movements of the manipulators is so great that the operator can gently take an egg with them, lift it and move it to another place, or pat the child on the head without fear of harming him. The robot is designed so that its manipulators will not twitch and perform other mechanical movements caused by more primitive drives. And this, in turn, makes it much safer for others.
The development of Disney Research is just the first step to making the movements of the robots of the future smoother, faster and more accurate. Despite the fact that today the operator controls this robot, in the future, researchers plan to achieve the same smoothness and speed of movement from a fully autonomous mechanism. In addition, the project will help scientists better understand the process of interaction between robots and humans, as well as make it as comfortable as possible.
The article is based on materials .
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