NASA and General Motors Corp. unveiled on Thursday a robot the two organizations have developed for use in space exploration and car manufacturing. What's striking about Robonaut 2 is the dexterity of its fingers, although its thumb is rather elongated. The YouTube video below shows R2, as it is referred to, gently moving back a piece of cloth to pick up a manila envelope.
NASA plans for robots to work next to astronauts and GM's interest is to have robots working in assembly plants, according to GM's press release.
NASA and GM worked together through a Space Act Agreement at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston to build a R2.
Hat tip: Boingboing
COMMENTS
Could some one expand on the difference between the technology levels and safety of the NASA/GM robot and the current medical surgical robots used for remote operations. I see the applications are different but the technology level improvement and safety level improvement for the GM and NASA robot--NASA mission now seems to be technology breakthoroughs--isn't clear to me.
Ray Vaselich 02/08/10 08:47 am ET