Redwood Robotics

[Camp Peavy]

They're developing a simple, inexpensive and safe arm for personal and service robots. :-)))

 

Redwood Robotics: New Silicon Valley Startup by Meka Robotics, Willow Garage, and SRI

http://www.hizook.com/blog/2012/05/03/redwood-robotics-new-silicon-valley-startup-meka-robotics-willow-garage-and-sri

 

Enjoy,

Camp

 

[Wayne C. Gramlich]

Camp:

Inexpensive is a relative term. I expect it to be quite a while
before the first person shows up at an HBRC meeting who has shelled
out their own personal money for one ;-) I look forward to seeing what
they do next. Their previous name was Meka Robotics:

http://mekabot.com/

Regards,

-Wayne

[snippage]

[Alan]

I might be mistaken, but I don't think that hand can hold and use a pair of
needle-nose pliers.

Beautiful CNC machining on the 1st page of the brochure. Unfortunately,
all I could read was that page.

Alan KM6VV

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> On Behalf Of Wayne C. Gramlich

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[John Slater]

I was very impressed with the arm I saw at the SRI booth at the Stanford robotics show last year.  This year I followed up and learned the group that did the SRI arm also did the proto work on the arm used in the deVinci surgical robot (I hope I am getting my facts straight).  Both arms get their dexterity by using cables.  These cables have to be replaced every 5 operations on deVinci robot.  The guy at SRI said they were aiming for a $10,000 price, and much better durability.  I was thinking, Willow Garage really needs this kind of arm.  Apparently everyone else thought the same thing.

Unfortunately,  there does not appear to be any magical invention involved;  just good engineering. And with proper timing they might get to market just a volume takes off and prices can come down significantly.

[Alan]

Not true.  The cables do not need to be replaced every 5 operations on the da Vinci systems.  I know of no spec saying when the cables need to be replaced in fact.  If there were, they would have a “Dallas chip” counting the operations on the arms just like they do for the expendable instruments.  Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?  The instruments also have cables; and flexing joints.  The instruments undergo the autoclave cycles to sterilize them, one of the reasons their “uses” are limited.

 

The da Vinci system also uses the servos to “float” the master and slave arms (gravity compensation); where I believe the Willow Garage ‘bot uses a counter weight.

 

No magic, just REALLY good engineering!

 

Alan KM6VV

 

On Behalf Of John Slater

I was very impressed with the arm I saw at the SRI booth at the Stanford robotics show last year.  This year I followed up and learned the group that did the SRI arm also did the proto work on the arm used in the deVinci surgical robot (I hope I am getting my facts straight).  Both arms get their dexterity by using cables.  These cables have to be replaced every 5 operations on deVinci robot.  The guy at SRI said they were aiming for a $10,000 price, and much better durability.  I was thinking, Willow Garage really needs this kind of arm.  Apparently everyone else thought the same thing.

 

Unfortunately,  there does not appear to be any magical invention involved;  just good engineering. And with proper timing they might get to market just a volume takes off and prices can come down significantly.

--