Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Twendy-One Robot Is Your Humanoid Helper
Twendy-One is a new and improved robot from Waseda University in Japan. The unusual name derives from the name of its predecessor (and sister bot), Wendy. Japan is anticipating a labor shortage in human services (the country has the greatest proportion of senior citizens in the world), and is determined to meet the challenge with robots.
(Twendy-One is ready to assist you)
Twendy-One also the soft touch needed for those essential breakfast tasks like taking toast out of the toaster. Twendy-One has enough strength to serve you breakfast. The trunk of the robot has four degrees of freedom to allow it to bend all the way to the floor to pick up an object, or to wipe up a spill so you won't fall. Twendy-One has the same arm length and reach as an average human woman; the hand has thirteen degrees of freedom for necessary dexterity.
(Twendy-One uses tongs delicately to remove toast)
Twendy-One's hand is biomimetic - it mimics your hand. The fingertips are made of soft material and has a gentle curved surface like a human hand. The fingertips have a six-axis force sensor, and additional distributed force sensors. Twendy-One can pick up and handle delicate objects like paper cups or soft plastic items without crushing them. It can even manipulate a straw!
(Twendy-One has a hand like yours - note the pad at the base of the thumb)
Twendy-one's head does more than just contain two CCD cameras and a force sensor (to detect a touch to the head). The robot can angle and tilt its head like a human being does to indicate intention - like asking a question or nodding to indicate assent.
Compare Twendy-One with this detailed look at RI-MAN, a Japanese health care robot; it has a smell sensor and face tracking, in addition to tactile sensor-guided movement.
Update 15-Apr-2008: See Flexible Frank from Robert Heinlein's The Door Into Summer for a good match on this one (thanks, Pete). End update.
See Twendy-One pick up a ball from the floor. Via RobotWatch; see also the Twendy-One website.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/28/2007)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 5 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.' - Rog Philips, 1950.
Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing Runs With His G1 Robot Army
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
Blue Collar AI Goes To Work To Mine Its Own Crypto
Blue collar bot.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
