Cool Tech: Video Gaming Device Inspires Use in Robots
CNET reports an interesting adaption of an advanced video gaming device for use in a military robot. The device manufacturer, Novint Technologies, is a company that makes 3-D touch controllers for video and computer games. These controllers give the gamer a definite sense of touch of the objects in the screen. The military application is to provide robot operators a better sense of how strong the grip of the robot has on objects that it is grasping.
People have all sorts of receptors in our body, both in our skin and our muscular system, that provide us feedback on how strongly we are grasping an object. The adapted video gaming device is being designed to provide that same feedback to operators of military robots. Picking up explosives with out detonating them is an immediate application.
Here is an older demo of a similar device, the Novint Falcon. You can easily see the possibilities in this device and how it might be used to send signals from robotic sensors to the human operator’s fingertips.
