March 12, 2004
Flexibot Robotic Arm for Helping the Disabled
The Flexibot is a pretty neat concept in robotic assistance for the disabled. The original idea was a robotic arm that was attached to a wheel-chair, but they have gone one step farther and allowed the arm to now detach from the wheelchair and move end over end through fixed attachment points. It is a pretty neat idea, but without any sensors other than internal angles, I'm not sure how accurate it can be.
Posted by elkaim at March 12, 2004 12:43 PMUnlike most other mobile robots, Flexibot gets about by flipping end over end from one docking station to the next. The docking points serve the dual purpose of both supporting and powering the droid.
Each arm weighs about 11 kilograms and its five motors making it capable of carrying up to four kilograms. The docking station uses a simple bayonet fitting, much like a light bulb, says Gunnar Bolmsję, a mechanical engineer at Lund University, in Sweden, who designed it.
This mechanism also allows the robot to attach household devices, such as electric toothbrushes, to either of its ends. In April, the team will add fold-out robotic grippers, which will mean the arm can grasp any object, not just those specially adapted for use.
At the moment the robot has no sensors and navigates simply by logging how far it has already moved. This approach allows an accuracy of one tenth of a millimetre, say the team. Users control the arm either by blowing down a straw or pressing a single button.