A robotic hand that could clean up messes would be a welcome
roommate for any dorm-room dweller. And far from being a pipe-dream, such a hand
may soon be on the market, say Harvard researchers.
The new robotic hand
comes after years of work by researchers in the lab of Robert D. Howe, a
professor of engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Unlike most robotic hands—which are made of rigid steel—Howe’s SDM Hand
is polymer-based and has flexible joints, according to Aaron M. Dollar, who
helped develop the technology as a graduate student at Harvard and is now a Yale
assistant professor.
“They asked, ‘How can you make the most simple hand
possible that will work?’” said Leif P. Jentoft, a graduate student in Howe’s
biorobotics lab.
Last week, robotics firm Barrett Technology, Inc.
licensed the SDM Hand for an undisclosed sum—drawn by the hope that the hand’s
novel structure could find use in a wide variety of applications.
Researchers conceived of the hand in response to a common problem in
earlier models. Unlike human hands, the steel versions weren’t able to adapt to
unexpected variations in their environments.
Human hands, for example,
have little issue adjusting when an object—say, a mug of coffee—turns out to be
smaller or in a different location than expected. But a steel hand, because of
its rigidity, would likely spill the coffee or even break the mug.
The
flexibility of the SDM Hand lets it conform to and grasp objects of different
sizes and shapes that may not be in the position predicted—in other words, the
environment found outside of the laboratory, added Dollar.
“The net
result is something that is very simple but is very robust in different grasping
scenarios,” Jentoft said. “As a result, in the real world, when your object
isn’t exactly where you expect it to be, the hand can adapt to it and doesn’t
end up damaging itself or the object.”
The potential solution has
ramifications outside the household as well, since rigid hands used in
manufacturing often break whenever they are struck by heavy objects, said
Barrett President and CEO William T. Townsend.
Barrett expects the first
robotic hands to be available in 2011, and the researchers envision the robotic
hand will find uses in the household—such as helping elderly people pick up
dropped objects—in prosthetics, and in factories.
“The Harvard hand is a
pretty bold new approach to the whole problem,” said Townsend. “It went against
everything everyone else was trying to do.”
—Staff writer Alissa M.
D’Gama can be reached at adgama@fas.harvard.edu.
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