First robot to breathe, sweat and tremble developed
Researchers have developed a robot that can breathe, sweat and tremble. The robot named ANDI is the first in the world with these features.
Scientists at the US company Thermetrics have designed a robot to cope and adapt to different temperatures for use by researchers at Arizona State University. In the new study, the team developed the first 'breathing, sweating, shivering' robot, which they named ANDI. The temperature-sensitive 'thermal mannequin' has 35 individually controlled surfaces with pores that drip beads of sweat like humans.
According to the Independent, the robot was built to provide a better understanding of the effects of extreme temperatures on human bodily health. The study aims to detect and measure the effects of extreme heat on humans.
Konrad Rykaczewski, lead researcher of the ASU research project, said, "ANDI sweats, generates heat, shivers, walks and breathes. There's a lot of great work on heat extremes, but there's also a lot missing. We're trying to develop a very good understanding of how heat affects the human body so we can quantitatively design things to address it."
Sweating robot (Christopher Goulet/ASU)
PREFERRED IN CLOTHING TESTS
Some of the 10 sweating robots developed so far are already being used by clothing companies to test clothes, but ASU's Android robot is the only one that can be used outdoors. This allows for previously impossible experiments in extremely hot environments and studies on the effect of solar radiation.
ASU researchers plan to test ANDI in heat-prone areas around Phoenix this summer to understand how different ages and body types are affected by high temperatures.
Ankit Joshi, ASU research scientist and chief operator of ANDI, who led the modeling efforts, said, "We can transfer different body mass index patterns, different age characteristics and different health issues - a diabetic has a different thermal regulation than a healthy person. So we can account for all these changes with our personalized models."
The findings of this robotic study will be used in the production of cooling clothing and technologies to prevent heatstroke and heat-related deaths.
Source: Independent
