Nasa’s Valkyrie humanoid, officially known as R5, was designed and built by the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Engineering Directorate to compete in the 2013 Darpa Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials.
Valkyrie was initially designed to work in disaster zones but in November 2014, two versions of the robot were given to US research labs so it could be developed further.
In 2011, the first humanoid robot in space, the legless Robonaut 2.0, was switched on after arriving at the International Space Station.
Valkyrie is designed to work in environments too hazardous for astronauts, and is the third and newest iteration of Nasa's robonauts.
Whereas the first two, R1 and R2, are used to perform repetitive tasks on the ISS, Valkyrie - with its three fingers and thumb - is being developed to mine resources, build habitats autonomously on the surface of Mars, complete disaster-relief manoeuvres and work alongside astronauts.
Valkyrie, a name taken from Norse mythology, is designed to be a "robust, rugged, entirely electric humanoid robot capable of operating in degraded or damaged human-engineered environments".
The humanoid has on-board computing and sensing and a 1.8kWh battery. When the battery isn't needed, the robot can run off the wall with the battery being replaced with a mass simulator and capacitor.
Valkyrie’s head is fitted with a perceptual sensor built by Carnegie Robotics Multisense SL. It also features "hazard cameras" in the torso. Each upper arm features four series elastic rotary actuators, and combined with the forearm, has seven joints.
A single rotary actuator makes the 'wrist' roll, linear actuators control wrist pitch and yaw and, elsewhere, the forearm features a "simplified humanoid hand" with three fingers and a thumb.
The pelvis houses three series elastic rotary actuators to control the waist rotation joint, and the hip rotation joint of each leg while the pelvis is considered the robot’s base frame.
Elsewhere, the robot has 44 degrees of body freedom, weighs 300lbs, is 6ft 2in tall and runs on two Intel Core i7. It is now being developed at various universities around the world to allow collision-free movement.
Source - wired
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