DAEJEON, South Korea, July 17 : A team of South Korean and U.S. researchers has unveiled a robotic technology that permits an individual to go well with up with out utilizing their palms or support from others, with potential for purposes in chip cleanrooms and emergency providers.
The technology developed by researchers at South Korea’s KAIST and Stanford University makes use of mushy and versatile “vines” powered by air strain embedded in clothes. When pressurised, the vines glide the cloth up near the wearer’s physique like an ivy plant climbing on a construction, even when the particular person doesn’t stay standing nonetheless.
“When I was riding a bicycle, it started to rain … and I thought it would be helpful if a raincoat could be put on automatically (as I ride),” stated KAIST postdoctoral researcher Kim Nam Gyun, the lead writer of a paper on the technology.
“The vine robotic stays near the particular person and dresses them by turning the clothes inside out because it strikes, permitting it to climb stably alongside the form of the physique,” Kim stated, including it takes about 10 seconds to placed on a full go well with.
A key to the technology’s potential is it doesn’t require the wearer to face immobile and it really works with no advanced management algorithm, the researchers stated.
Inspired by climbing ivy, the robotic advances by rising at its tip moderately than shifting its entire physique, enabling steady motion alongside curved surfaces, stated Ryu Jee-Hwan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at KAIST.
“It can pass through narrow gaps, grow while adapting to the shape of its surrounding environment, and move regardless of whether the surface is slippery, sticky, or sloped,” he stated.
Beyond quick purposes for serving to the aged and disabled, the team sees potential to be used the place the consumer must go well with up and off rapidly and with out utilizing the palms, together with in semiconductor cleanrooms and by emergency employees requiring private protecting gear.
Ryu stated given the explosive development of AI, there was often a lot consideration on the software program powering methods, however the team’s self-dressing robotic was an instance of how mechanical engineering may complement software program.
The research was printed in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, a peer-reviewed journal.