Westworld comes true: Robots driven by bionic muscles have arrived

Has the Westworld-style bionic robot come true ?!

Driven by artificial muscles, this upper body robot named Torso starts bowing and saluting, turning its neck back and forth...

Upon closer inspection, it is revealed that its elbows, cervical vertebrae, shoulder joints, etc. are all modeled after human tissue structure (hand operation training is still in progress).

Wow! Among the Iron Man-like humanoid robots, there is a completely different "new skin"—

This has also attracted NVIDIA scientist Jim Fan to the stage, who, after quoting a classic line from Dr. Ford in "Westworld," exclaimed:

A new vibe of humanoid.

This line implies that the great achievements of human intelligence may be based on the most basic biological needs, which also coincides with why Torso chooses a unique "bionic human" route.

In fact, the hand circulation test it conducted earlier attracted a lot of attention and amazed a lot of netizens:

And now, netizens who are nostalgic have started to dominate the screen, Westworld comes true +10086!

Interestingly, the logo of this company is highly similar to the cover of the first season of "Westworld" (doge).

The humanoid robot closest to "Westworld"

Humanoid robots have been quite popular in the past two years, but they all look almost the same in appearance.

Taking only the hands as an example, most of the products on the market currently, like Tesla's Optimus, although following a human-like approach, use a cable-driven system + actuator coordination.

Operating be like:

The team behind the establishment of Torso chose the original route of "bionics" from the very beginning:

Constructing (robotic) organizations in the way they exist in nature

So, why choose the method of artificial muscle driving?

The reasons can be summarized as follows:

• Simulating the contraction and extension of human muscles can achieve the purpose of highly imitating human movements;
• The polymer materials used are softer, lighter, cheaper, and perform better than traditional metals;
• Hydraulic drive is used instead of traditional pneumatic drive, which is smoother and closer to human motion;
• For example, with these bionic hands, the team aims to 1:1 replicate the anatomical structure of the human hand, including tendons, muscles, soft tissues, and bones.

After the replication is completed, based on the latest demonstration, it can flexibly control a small ball (while rotating and keeping it from falling):

It has 27 degrees of freedom and can carry a load of 7 kilograms (muscle contraction is less than 0.3s under a 1kg load), with a failure occurring only after 500,000 cycles.

Moreover, the official website shows that its cost of goods sold (COGS, purchase + other sales expenses) is less than $2800 (approximately 19937.4 RMB).

From a design detail perspective, the overall tendons and muscles do not contain metal elements to ensure flexibility; at the same time, it allows for pressure drive using electrical and chemical power.

The only relatively hard bones in the structure are made of molded carbon fiber, which has excellent properties such as high strength, light weight, and corrosion resistance, ensuring high strength while reducing costs.

In addition, the rest of the structure is entirely made up of soft tissues, including: ligaments, tendons, sheath needles, veins, fat, skin, and connective tissues, among others Overall, although muscle technology can achieve good performance in bionic hands, the key lies in the hydraulic solution.

The team chose the hydraulic version instead of the pneumatic version, which can provide better maneuverability, easier control, and maintenance.

They use water as the medium for the hydraulic system, which is not only simple and easy to obtain, but also even if there are small holes in the "muscle tissue", it will not cause limb failure, similar to the elasticity and durability of human muscles.

For example, the product showcased by the team in the early days, driven by water with a peak power consumption of 200W, the team claimed at the time:

We invented and produced portable power supplies and our own valves to fully control the speed of contraction, compressing the entire power system (for the whole body) inside the humanoid robot torso.

Ultimately, this bionic hand will be used to perform more precise operations, such as holding a surgical knife or giving injections.

Behind the Company: Clone Robotics

Clone Robotics was officially established in November 2021, with the founding team from Poland.

Co-founder and CEO Dhanush Radhakrishnan, a plasma physicist in the field of nuclear fusion, developed a 655-symptom disease checker based on reinforcement learning.

CTO Łukasz Koźlik, spent 7 years developing high-power density muscle-skeletal robot technology (said to cost less than $20,000), and independently built 12 Clone Hand prototypes.

In addition, the other 10 members are all engineers, spanning software, design, materials science, electronics, mechanics, physics, and machine learning.

The group's goal is to create affordable robots for everyone (currently priced at $20,000).

They start with dexterous hands and hope to eventually build robots with high power density and bipedal walking (mass production).

According to reports, they have increased the durability of bionic hands by more than 100 times in the first year of formal operation.

Moreover, starting from 2022, they will integrate machine learning technology to allow bionic hands to learn from human-imitated video data, thereby accelerating the acquisition of other new skills.

As of now, the company has raised $640,000 (approximately RMB 4.55 million) from angel investors and venture capital firms, including the co-founder of Y Combinator and the former CTO of Coinbase.

So, do you see a bright future for this company?

Article Source: QbitAI, Original Title: "Westworld Comes True: Bionic Muscle-Driven Robots Arrive, NVIDIA Scientists Stand Out"