Continuing to develop the limits of robotics, scientists working at MIT are starting to think about applications for their most recent prototype, and it could be worth watching for those in emergency management. According to Newsweek, the team’s newest development – the Cheetah 3 – is designed to resemble the big cat, and to offer an extensive range of motions. Featuring flexible joints, the ability to traverse rough terrain and changes in elevations, and the ability to rapidly recover its balance, the robot is thought to have potential applications in the field of search and rescue. “There are a range of situations where you don’t want to send a human, but you can send a robot,” Sangbae Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, told Newsweek. Kim envisions the robot being deployed into environments like power plants experiencing potential disasters, war zones, or other areas unsafe for human responders.
Working without vision systems, the Cheetah 3 is designed to respond to tactile feedback. “There are many unexpected behaviors the robot should be able to handle without relying too much on vision,” said Kim. “Vision can be noisy, slightly inaccurate and sometimes not available, and if you rely too much on vision, your robot has to be very accurate in position and eventually will be slow. So we want the robot to rely more on tactile information. That way, it can handle unexpected obstacles while moving fast.”
Source:
http://www.newsweek.com/mit-blind-cheetah-robot-rescue-people-disaster-zones-1012834
