a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Otherlab's prototype articulated inflatable robot arm, is apparently able to lift a person with 50-60 psi even though it weighs only 2 pounds. All pictures and captions sourced from Otherlabs webpage unless noted otherwise. See Otherlabs webpage and other videos here. See other Pneumatic, Fluidic, and Inflatable robots here.
Siddharth Sanand: is doing his PhD at the Robotics Institute at CMU. He is interested in making robots soft and safe to enable physical human robot interaction. On the other side, he has been sewing together various ideas on inflatable robots and actuators. Recently interned at Otherlab. All pictures and captions sourced from Otherlabs webpage …
Pneubot stands for "pneumatic robot", or a robot that is actuated by pneumatic technology. A pneumatic technology involves the use of compressed air to drive mechanical motion. The compressed air can be moved through soft, balloon-like tubes, which allows for both rigidity (when filled) and flexibility (when decompressed or empty). In this video, an elephant-shaped …
Read More “2011 – Inflatable Walking Elephant – Otherlab (Saul Griffith)”
Painting by FRED FREEMAN, originally appearing in the July 11, 1960 issue of LIFE Magazine. The creature unreeling an electric cable as he explores a distant planet is a man prepared for space as some scientists propose. Electrodes and other attachments would control many of the physical functions normally initiated by the brain, such as …
Read More “1960 – Cyborg – Kline and Clynes (American and Austrian)”
CYB Head and Arm – 1969 Plexiglass, aluminium, and wires. cybernetic man — birth of a new type of man, adapted to new duties and interplanetary missions. we known already at this moment that it will be soon possible to adapt man to new environments by adding or replacing parts of his body with cybernetic …
Read More “1968-9 – “Homo Cyberneticum” (“Cybernetic Man”) series – Paul Van Hoeydonck (Belgian)”