If you are like me and have been sitting in front of your toaster thinking to yourself, “Toast is great and all, but if only it could grow arms and both punch and stab me.” Well you are in for a treat my friend.
At the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation held in Alaska researchers found that Robots were able to “inflict wounds that were lethal”. Now maybe I’m not qualified to fund research projects but they could’ve saved all that money if they would’ve talked any child under five. The research aimed to see just which weapon robots were best with including giving the robot arm weighing 14kg and a 1.1m a variety of bladed household weapons including a steak knife, kitchen knife, scissors and screwdriver. The robot arm was then programmed to use the weapons to stab and cut a silicone lump, a leg from a dead pig and the arm of a human volunteer. That’s right, a human volunteer.
httpv://www.youtube.com/v/dMh6cHSG3ng
The research is attempting to limit danger by using a safety system that can detect when the robot hits flesh of a different consistency and thus limit the damage done. Researchers from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German aerospace agency used torque sensors to spot when it has hit a different substance and halts movement.
In 1981, to kick off robot killing season, Kenji Urada, a 37 year old man Japanese factory worker was carrying out some maintenance when he was accidentally pushed into a grinding machine by a powerful hydraulic robotic arm which was unable to detect him. Thus making him the first recorded casualty ever by a robot. Despite safety efforts robots have claimed even more since 1981, people have been “crushed, hit on the head, welded and even had molten aluminium poured over them by robots. Last year there were 77 robot-related accidents in Britain alone, according to the Health and Safety Executive.” The German company DLR hopes to change this by making the robots more sensitive to our human presence. Or, they could be just teaching them how to kill us better. I for one think the final stage in this research should be teaching them kung-fu. If the technology isn’t there yet maybe just watch this other DLR research project below.
Ladies and Gentleman the doomsday clock has officially moved one more minute closer to midnight.
via: [the economist, BBC]
