Now, Wearable Robot To Help You Perform Household Tasks

Washington: Researchers at MIT have developed a wrist-mounted robot that enhances the grasping motion of the human hand.

The robot works essentially like two extra fingers adjacent to the pinky and thumb. A novel control algorithm enables it to move in sync with the wearer's fingers to grasp objects of various shapes and sizes. Wearing the robot, a user could use one hand to, for instance, hold the base of a bottle while twisting off its cap. "This is a completely intuitive and natural way to move your robotic fingers.

You do not need to command the robot, but simply move your fingers naturally. Then the robotic fingers react and assist your fingers," said Harry Asada, the Ford Professor of Engineering in Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Mechanical Engineering. Asada hopes that the two-fingered robot may assist people with limited dexterity in performing routine household tasks, such as opening jars and lifting heavy objects.

The robot, which the researchers have dubbed "supernumerary robotic fingers," consists of actuators linked together to exert forces as strong as those of human fingers during a grasping motion. To develop an algorithm to coordinate the robotic fingers with a human hand, the researchers first looked to the physiology of hand gestures, learning that a hand's five fingers are highly coordinated.

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