Robots That Sense Before They Touch
This is a Printer Friendly News Article on the Virtual Worldlets Network.
Return to the web-view version.
Date posted: 26/09/2007
Posted by: Site Administration
This story is from the category
 Artificial Intelligence

At Intel's research labs, in Seattle, a robotic arm approaches three plastic bottles, two of which are filled with water, one of which is empty. Without touching the bottles, the sensors at the end of the arm scan them, collecting information about their conductive properties. After each bottle has been sensed, the arm returns to the empty bottle and, as programmed, knocks it off the table.

The demonstration was made possible with electric-field sensors, built into the robot?s appendages, to give them pre-touch senses.

Currently, robotic arms and hands routinely grab and hold objects on factory floors, where the uncertainty has been engineered away. By adding pre-touch to a robot, it can sense the shape and size of unfamiliar objects at close range and react accordingly.

See the full Story via external site: www.technologyreview.com