Knife-Wielding Robot Performs Stabbing Tests
To most people, a knife-wielding robot probably sounds a bit scary. But some fearless researchers at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have armed a robot with various stabbing and slicing instruments, and have programmed it to restrain itself from injuring people.
The team equipped their robotic arm with scissors, kitchen knives, a screwdriver and a scalpel and had it stab and slice different materials, including a piece of silicone and a pig’s leg, at varying speeds. The group then implemented a detection system that uses force sensors on to detect when the robot has accidentally cut something. In the stabbing motion, the safety program resulted in much smaller cuts (as little as 1mm); for the slicing motion, it prevented the robot from cutting the pig’s leg entirely.
The researchers demonstrate the effectiveness of the safety system on a (very trusting) human volunteer at the end of this video.
The group presented the work at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010) this week; last year the team demoed a system designed to prevent robots knocking over crash test dummies.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.
ChatGPT is about to revolutionize the economy. We need to decide what that looks like.
New large language models will transform many jobs. Whether they will lead to widespread prosperity or not is up to us.
Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death
Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.
GPT-4 is bigger and better than ChatGPT—but OpenAI won’t say why
We got a first look at the much-anticipated big new language model from OpenAI. But this time how it works is even more deeply under wraps.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.