Coming Soon — Cyborg Farmers 172
palegray.net writes Robots.net covers an article about robotic exoskeletons for Japanese farmers. These exoskeletons would provide increased strength and support for manual labor intensive tasks. More information can also be found at robots-dreams.com. 'The robotic suit relies on ultrasonic motors along with various sensors and wireless networking gear. [...] The mass-produced version of the suit is expected to weigh in at 8 kilograms and cost about 200,000 yen.'"
Nifty advances (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WTF are "Ultrasonic Motors?" (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BS (Score:5, Informative)
What country do you think Japan is in?
This is not China or India. They do not have "cheap child labour". This is the country with the highest per-capita wages in the world. This is where labour is at its most expensive. This is also the country where children go to school 10 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, from the age when they can hold a pencil until they go to university. There's no child labour at all, let alone cheap.
Re:Tractors (Score:4, Informative)
In America they grow mostly maize and wheat, which can be easily automated by dragging heavy machinery across the top of the soil. In Japan they grow mostly fruit and vegetables, which have to be carefully picked from the plants. Tractors are just not that useful to them, which is why they don't really use them. Harvesting is mostly done by hand because the land of genius automation has not been able to find a way to automate it - until now (maybe).
Here's a hint at the problems they have to deal with: the Japanese radish (one of their staple vegetables) is a foot long and about three inches wide. It takes a lot of careful pulling to get something that size out of the ground without damaging it.
Re:¥200,000 = $1834.55 (Score:5, Informative)
the software behind it isn't anything radical, and since then motors don't apply force, just resistance, most of the work is done with very little power. (power is needed to turn on and off the motor, but not to actually move limbs, so it;s kind of like assisted breaking, or power steering, but for the body.)
It's a lot more simple than people think to make it out. Many of the componenets are slight upgrades to common hobby gear... the sensors are where the real magic is, allowing the suit to move fluidly with the wearer and sense when to support and when to assist. Other than that, it's not more than a fancy mechanical brace. $2000 USD is completely beievable.
Also, misprint in the article states 8KG. It's 18KG (about 40 lbs).
Re:WTF are "Ultrasonic Motors?" (Score:3, Informative)
A decent explaination about how these things work.
http://www.tky.3web.ne.jp/~usrmotor/English/html/principlesandStructure.html [3web.ne.jp]
NASA JPL image of a robot arm assembly using a ultrasonic rotor (should help with visualizing what TFA is about)
http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/taskImage.cfm?TaskID=140&tdaID=800006&Image=319 [nasa.gov]
NASA JPL article with a good illustration of the "travelling wave" phenomenon that makes these work.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/images_videos/iv_pages/Yosi_Ultrasonic_Motor1.html [nasa.gov]
And in other currencies... (Score:3, Informative)
950 UK Pounds
1250 Euros
44850 Rubles
72300 Rupees
13400 Yuan
20150 Mexican Pesos
HAL.