The bipedal robot named HERMES is able to smash soda cans, punch through drywall, karate chop boards in half, and kick over trash buckets. The machine can be controlled via an exoskeleton of motors and wires. The operator's every move is instantly translated to the robot, the same way a puppeteer is controlling his marionette.
As the operator mimes kicking or punching through a wall, HERMES does the same. The moment the robot's fist hits the wall, the operator is also able to feel a jolt at his waist. This makes him lean back against the jolt, by reflex, causing the same movement in the robot. This is an effective way to balance HERMES against the force of its own punch.
HERMES features a unique balance-feedback interface that helps it not only to successfully punch through a wall but also keep balanced during his movements. The interface between the robot and the human operator allows a human to feel the robot's weight shifting remotely, and quickly shift his own weight in order to adjust the robot's balance. Thanks to this coping mechanism the robot can carry out various momentum-driven tasks like swinging a bat or punching through walls. All these while maintaining its balance.
HERMES's interface was designed by researchers from MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering. The interface takes advantage of a human's split-second reflexes, allowing the robot to maintain its balance during all kind of complex tasks.
Joao Ramos of MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering says that the interface gives the robot much faster reaction times than other robot prototypes that can only use onboard cameras in order to adjust their balance based on visual feedback. Ramos added that robots that based their reactions on visual feedback are slow because the processing of images is typically very slow. If human natural reflexes are used instead, this gives more speed and better coordination.
Ramos gives the example of walking, which can be compared with a "process of falling and catching yourself". For us humans, this feels effortless, but for a robot is challenging to program that in a way that is both efficient and dynamic. For this reason, added Ramos, the researchers at MIT focused on exploring ways to ensure an interface human-machine in order that "humans can take over complex actions for the robot."
Ramos and the rest of team working on this project envision deploying HERMES to a disaster areas for performing rescue operations. Guided from a distance by a human operator, the robot would be able to explore the area.
The Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Center Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and his colleagues, including PhD student Sangbae Kim and Albert Wang, will present a paper on HERMES interface in September, at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.
