This clip showcases the Robonaut2 robot. The video is narrated by Nick Barker from Boston’s IDG News Service with the following information:

 

NASA and General Motors are working on the next generation of a robot designed to help both the automotive and aerospace industries. Called Robonaut2 or R2, the next generation bot is faster, more dextrous and technologically more advanced than its predecessor.

 

Ron Difter from Robonaut2 explains, “The goal here is that more tasks can be more efficiently offloaded to robots. For example, in space when astronauts perform tasks there is a lot of set up before the task is actually started and a lot of teardown after the task is done particularly on space stations, setting up the tools, setting up the right equipment. If a robot can perform that task it allows the crewperson to be much more efficient in doing the things that only a crewperson could do. The partnership between NASA and GM has been a fantastic one and it has resulted in benefits that we hadn’t predicted when we first started working together. “

 

One of those benefits Difter said was increased robot durability. For example, GM needs a robot to complete tasks millions of times, whereas with NASA it may only be a few hundred.

 

R2 is able to lift, not just hold a 20 pound weight, which NASA claims is about 4 times heavier than what other robots can handle. The increased dexterity and increased capability in the robot’s thumb mean that it can work with flexible materials more easily which are more common in space. The robot has force monitors so it should be able to cope well in a zero gravity environment.

 

The bottom of the robot is unfinished for now, but may have a single leg or four wheels once it’s complete. The idea is to give the robot supervised autonomy where it can complete a set of tasks by itself, but be monitored by a human before moving onto a new set of tasks.

 

There’s no word on when it will be released and the cost wasn’t released.

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