SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Robotic Third Arm Can Smash Through Walls [ieee.org]

When we've written about adding useful robotic bits to people in the past, whether it's some extra fingers [ieee.org] or an additional arm or two [ieee.org], the functionality has generally been limited to slow moving, lightweight tasks. Holding or carrying things. Stabilizing objects or the user. That sort of thing. But that's not what we want. What we want are wearable robotic arms that turn us into a superhero, like Marvel Comics' Doc Ock [wikipedia.org], who I'm just going to go ahead and assume is a good guy because those robotic arms strapped to his torso look awesome.

At ICRA this week, researchers from Université de Sherbrooke in Canada are finally giving us what we want, in the form of a waist-mounted remote controlled hydraulic arm that can help you with all kinds of tasks while also being able, should you feel the need, to smash through walls.

Supernumerary 3DOF Robotic Arm [youtube.com] (2m50s video)

Multifunctional 3-DOF Wearable Supernumerary Robotic Arm Based on Magnetorheological Clutches [infovaya.com]

Original Submission