Courtesy
Robots, as useful as they are, tend to be clumsy, stiff, and hard. But do they have to be this way? Franka Emika is a company that developed Panda Powertool, a robotic system. Panda Robotic Arm was built with this system and has exceptional soft-robot performance. The robotic arm can move in seven axes, each with torque sensors. The arm therefore is extremely flexible and has a smart sense of “touch”. For example, the arm can stop upon touching a balloon. The sensors also make the arm very accurate and stable. The system can be used to conduct scientific experiments or build circuit boards. For instance, a research version of Panda arm allows users to program the robot and interface the robot with external sensors. After installation, the research robotic arm can be accessed simply from a web browser. It is a popular choice for research labs.
A particularly interesting fact is that two Panda arms can even collaborate to build a third one. With all the sophisticated technologies, the robotic arm can be as cheap as around $11,000. This relatively low cost makes the robotic arm attractive to many small businesses now, and potentially individual customers in the future. The company also launched an online platform, Franka World, to connect researchers, partners, customers, and software and hardware developers. Franka World provides access to an online store of software and hardware products, including tools for managing robot fleets.
Link: Company Website
Contact: Webpage
Location: Germany
Mentioned: among the best inventions of the year by Time
Purpose
Make a machine soft and agile
Idea
Have torque sensors in multiple axes
Further Possibilities
1. Use Panda Powertool to build a research lab that can be controlled through the Internet
2. Have a factory where robotic arms reproduce themselves.
3. Use Panda arm to improve the accuracy and quality of 3D printing
4. Train Panda arm to replicate human movement, such as piano playing
5. Use brain-computer-interface to operate Panda arm
Questions
1. What might be all the human labor that can be replaced with soft robots?
2. What might be all the uses for combining computer vision with soft robotics?
3. What areas should robotics not enter?
