Disney is famous not only for its animated movies and films, but also the Disney Research lab, the walls of which employs the most talented engineers. One of their latest projects is called “safe for human telepresence robot, equipped with a hybrid hydrostatic drives”. Behind this seemingly intricate is the attempt by the Disney engineers to create a mechanical avatar through which one person can communicate with others at a distance and without the risk of harm to him.
The main problem in robotics, where engineers are fighting is not the first year, is too pronounced the mechanicalness of the movements of the manipulators. Developers from Disney Research approached the issue very seriously and has equipped its robot joints based on hybrid drives that use both Pneumatics and hydraulics. These drives can have up to 10 degrees of freedom, but what you will see in the video below, is drives with only 4 degrees of freedom. They also provided a mechanism for a stereo camera, through which the operator can see the world through the eyes of the robot. For this man enough to put on the VR headset Oculus Rift. Turning his head from side to side, the operator can rotate the head of your avatar, and look around you.
The operator interacts with the levers which are remotely controlled robot manipulators. For a complete sense of presence on these levers serves tactile feedback, making people feel good, when the robot arm touched any hard surface or even the skin of a living person. The precise movements of the manipulators so great that the operator can gently take them the egg, lift it and move to another place or Pat the child on the head without fear to hurt him. The robot is designed so that his arms don’t jerk me around and make other mechanical movement, driven by more primitive drives. And this, in turn, makes it much safer for the environment.
Development Disney Research is only the first step to ensure that the movements of the robots of the future become more fluid, fast and accurate. Despite the fact that today this robot is controlled by the operator, in the future, the researchers plan to achieve the same smoothness and speed of movements from fully-Autonomous mechanism. In addition, the project will help scientists better understand the process of interaction between people and robots, and also make it as comfortable as possible.
Engineers Disney will make the movements of the robots more human
Sergey Grey