This robot sweats, exercises, and plays Badminton. We are quite closer to see fully human like robots, as the innovation in robotics have allowed the robots to engage a number of impressive actions, such as walking, talking, and dancing.
But the most eye-catching event comes when we see a robot that can exercise who even breaks a sweat.
The robot we are talking about is “Kengoro” It is 5’5” tall, 125-pound robot that has been created by Japanese researchers.
As we know that most robots are designed to be tasked-oriented. But 5’5″ tall Kengoro and the other one “Kenshiro” were created with the hope of better understanding how a human functions, such as muscle control, or operate.
The research team that created the two robots, wrote in their paper, that was published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics,
“Our intent is to design a humanoid based on human systems—including the musculoskeletal structure, sensory nervous system, and methods of information processing in the brain—to support science-oriented goals, such as gaining a deeper understanding of the internal mechanisms of humans,”.
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A video shows that the newer of thr two bots, Kengoro, can do sit ups, chin ups, back extensions, calf raises, and even can hit a badminton birdie, among other such kind of actions.
Like humans, Kengoro get tired, causing its motors to get overheated. Typically, researchers will be using fans and other mechanisms to cool robots off, but not Kengoro, which has been made of a special material allowing it to artificially perspire to cool down.
According to Yuki Asano the study author, “A sponge-like metal material, created using a 3-D printer, is used in part of the skeletal structure,”.
He told The Japan Times that they have designed a cooling system that could make water seep through the material and can evaporate.
After all, doing push-ups for eleven continuous minutes (as “Kengoro” can reportedly do) is sure to make anyone get overheated, even a metal machine can’t escape it.
Creating robots as created Kengoro and Kenshiro, may help advance medicine in different ways. The invention could permit scientists to grow tissue grafts used for transplantation, the study authors pointed out in their paper, referring to a separate study been published in Science Robotics. It may also help with physical training.
The study author wrote “If a humanoid can replicate human movements, then the resulting muscle contribution analysis or sensory data obtained during motion will benefit athletes or sports trainers,”.
He also wrote in that, human-shaped robotic limbs are also expected to be utilised in other fields, like artificial limbs or tele-operated human agents.
