No, it’s not an evil plot to take over the presidency and the White House. It’s also not that singing bush on The Three Amigos. I’m talking about “fractal branching ultra-dexterous robots.” So what the heck is that? A bush robot is a branched hierarchy of articulated limbs, starting from a macroscopically large trunk through successively smaller and more numerous branches, ultimately to microscopic twigs and nanoscale fingers. With its huge numbers of opposable fingers of all scales, a bush robot’s dexterity would greatly exceed anything known. This of course is highly speculative and there are some other technologies which must be advanced in order for these guys to begin to be built including:
- Computational power increased at least a millionfold in density
- Means to build mechanical structures over the entire range of scales from macroscopic to microscopic
- Scalable high-power actuators
- Scalable high-density power distribution and storage
- High-strength materials
Why would anyone want to build one of these things? Also when can we expect these highly dexterous robots to hit the assembly line? To find the answers to these and many other questions I’m sure you may have you’ll have to check out this site.
Also it might be of interest to some as to why I posted this. Well… I don’t know; it just seemed cool.