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Oct 16, 2016

Cool Automatons: Humanoid Robots Have Been Given the Ability to Sweat

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

1st question that comes to mind is why? Then, I think about how this can be used against enemy states or would be criminals who are considering kidnapping or assignation attempts on leaders; then I see opportunity.


In Brief:

  • The robot can stay cooled for nearly 12 hours with a single cup of water.
  • The method is three times more effective that simple air cooling.

A novel design for robots allows them to “sweat”, greatly improving thermal and mechanical integrity. The bot from SCHAFT was a top scorer in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in 2013.

The University of Tokyo’s JSK Lab’s Kengoro is a 1.7-meter (5.6 feet) tall, 56-kilogram (123 pounds) musculoskeletal humanoid crammed to the brim with circuit boards and 108 motors. These structural components generate a lot of heat which would constrain the bot’s performance, and there wasn’t much room for any cooling mechanisms. The researchers coped with this by comparing it to our own—sweat.

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