Charlie Kemp with the personal care robot for home care tasks. (Credit: Rob Felt)
Over the past two years, stroke victim Henry Evans has teamed up with Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering professors Charlie Kemp and Wallace H. Coulter to design robots that can help people with their daily activities.
From shaving to scratching to adjusting blankets, the robots created by Kemp and Coulter have helped Evans and his wife adjust and deal with his long-term injury. “We did things with the robots that I never could have imagined,” said Evans.
It’s not easy or common for robots to work with people in close quarters as part of their daily activities. Currently, most robots are limited to manufacturing settings where the only direct human interactions are after lock-out-tag-out procedures.
However, the robotics teams at Georgia Tech believe that humans and robots can work together when the robots assert a certain amount of common sense. For instance, knowing the appropriate pressure to apply when shaving a person’s face.
According to Kemp, “A major challenge for health care robots is that they lack so much of the knowledge and experience that people take for granted … To us, it’s just common sense that everybody has; for robots, it’s a serious impediment.”
This common sense is the first milestone to open the door for human-robot interactions and collaborations. This pairing can eventually move past the realm of personal care too. Imagine efficient manufacturing robots working with humans in close quarters; each possesses unique abilities and can work in tandem with one another. Or imagine defense robots utilizing human skills to execute dangerous missions.
After the recent blockbuster hit of Big Hero 6 and its robotic character Baymax, though, I can’t help but dream of reprograming my personal health care robot to help fight crime. But maybe that’s just me.
Source Georgia Tech.