Robotic arms are expensive to build and operate dangerous. If a robot shortcomings of the system, the people will be injured. That is not the case ISELLA, a bionic robot arm, the nature of the handbag and gently with the people. A bull in a box served as inspiration for the design.

It is a long, gray, smooth and with no less than 40000 muscles, which are very nimble. An elephant requires access to her chest and articles for the drink. With their tribes, the pachyderms may trees and pull heavy loads, but also in a position to manipulate the execution of very dangerous. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Automation IPA in Stuttgart, the elephants in the trunk, as a concept. "The flexibility and agility gave us the idea of a bionic arm robotics, ISELLA" says Harald Staab, IPA, the researchers and inventors developed technology.

Robotic arms are often a risk for the operator-a technology that can contribute to the clutch wild, uncontrolled movements. Not so ISELLA. While conventional weapons robots have only a machine to drive each articulated, ISELLA two, in pairs, if the engine fails, the second, to prevent the uncontrolled. "In contrast to the hydraulically or pneumatically actuated systems, robotics our arms has a simple and cheap muscular, consisting of a small electric motor with a drive shaft and a rope, Staab said.

In the same way an attachment of the tendon of a muscle on the other hand, the cable links two parts. The drive shaft is in the middle of the cord. If the shaft is running around the cable in both directions, a kind of double-helix. The researchers have christened this DOHELIX. "The tree is not thicker than the power cord, but is stable enough to fight the demolition.

Therefore, on report for the submission of a conventional oriented, "says Staab. This has been done with the help of elastic materials with a very strong resistance to the crack-the type of material used to manufacture the sailboat Suspended and motorized. Correspondingly DOHELIX is much cheaper energy and that a vicious circle. Zugkraft His many orders of magnitude than its own weight, and the reader is referred to the DOHELIX concept Can in other applications on all levels, from the micro-scale muscles of cranes container terminals in seaports.

The ISELLA arms robot consists of a total of ten DOHELIX the muscles with a Beuger and an extender for each articulation, four, in the elbow and six in the upper arm. The robotic arm is as flexible as a human arm. "Currently we are working on the elbow," says Staab. Possible applications for ISELLA include medical rehabilitation, as in therapy to restore use of the members injured, and at low cost, flexible prostheses. Such devices are used in the trade in a period of about two years, Staab estimates.