Dexterous Robot Designed for Spacework

H O U S T O N, July 24 -- The scientists behind NASA’s newest robot have outfitted their creation with an ancient tool that’sstill a giant leap forward: hands.

And who can blame them? Look what hands did for human evolution. Robonaut, the space agency’s latest-generation robot, has a handthat no other machine of its kind has ever had. Where other robotscould simply pick objects up with grippers, Robonaut has fourfingers, a thumb and a handshake to make a politician envious.

Big Leap For Robot Kind

Robonaut’s hands are nimble enough to pick up a small metalwasher with tweezers or squeeze the trigger on a variable-speeddrill. One noted roboticist calls Robonaut’s hand “a masterworkdevelopment.”

“It is a big leap for robot kind,” says Red Whittaker, thefounder of the Field Robotics Center at Carnegie MellonUniversity’s Robotics Institute. Designed as a remote-controlledspace helper, Robonaut was built to work with the same tools aspacewalking astronaut would use.

“The idea was essentially to create a surrogate for theastronaut,” says NASA engineer Chris Lovchik, who designedRobonaut’s hands. “We’re putting the astronaut’s training into therobot, and putting the robot out to perform the drudgery in thehazardous conditions of space.”

Hands alone aren’t enough for that kind of work.

So Robonaut’s designers at NASA’s Dexterous Robotics Laboratoryhave given their creation an arm, a torso, a head and video-cameraeyes. When the full prototype is completed later this year,Robonaut will have a second arm and hand and a single leg toprovide hands-free support.

That’s all downhill work after the challenge of building thehand and arm, says project director Robert Ambrose.

“We’ve gone after the hardest part first,” Ambrose says.

Though its grip is only about half that of a human and the armcan lift only 21 pounds, that’s more than enough strength to workin the weightlessness of space.