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hi we're here in the robonaut 2 lab

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today at the johnson space center

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talking with lyndon bridgewater who is

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the chief mechanical engineer for the

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robonaut 2 project and also for a new

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project that he's actually wearing on

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his hand can you tell us what this is

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lyndon this is the grasp assist device

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that we're using for

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developing technologies for assisting

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astronauts on suited gloves or assembly

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line workers down here on earth so that

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they can handle uh repetitive tasks and

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heavy lift tasks okay grasp assist

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device what i mean it's a robot on your

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hand right exactly it is a robot on your

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hand um it is basically assisting me or

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its operator in order to carry an object

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or grasp an object why would we need

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that so from nasa's perspective

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spacesuits are like a pressure bubble

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that astronauts are trying to squeeze

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down and pull on every time they're

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doing an eva

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in order to help

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take that burden away we've put

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mechanical actuation systems on board

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with computers and sensors that allow an

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operator to

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trigger the device and make it close the

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hand down instead of the astronaut

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having to fight it himself can yeah

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close it open a few times so they can

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hear that

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going on that's what is that what's

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doing that those are several actuators

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that are located back here on the in the

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forearm of the of the glove um

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they are triggered by a sensor within

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the glove that tells it when to open and

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close

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and all that's processed by computers

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that are on board and you've got it

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attached to a battery here on your back

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and correct okay so it basically makes

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your grip stronger it does

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it either makes me stronger or it allows

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me to hold an object that i could

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normally hold longer and with less

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effort and we hear that spacewalks are

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really hard on your hands because the

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the gloves are hard to use and they're

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you just use your hands a lot in

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spacewalk that is absolutely correct um

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an astronaut in order to move around

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they're not moving around by walking

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they're having to climb so everywhere

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they're moving they're using their hands

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the entire time so astronauts before an

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eva are working their hands out a lot

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you see them around campus walking

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around squeezing tennis balls all the

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time

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this is something that we're working on

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in order to try and take away some of

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that brutal effort that comes with the

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eva walks it doesn't make you superhuman

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right it doesn't make you superhuman

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we're only adding about five to ten

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pounds worth of extra force

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in this design right here we can change

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that to to be a little higher a little

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less

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we can change the way that it closes

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down so if you're trying to hold a drill

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grab down on the the grip fingers and

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then allows the the trigger to still be

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actuated so we can do quite a lot of

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things with this very interesting and

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how is this related to robonaut so this

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is a direct offshoot of some of the

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technology that we were developing for

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robonaut one of the nice things about

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what we were doing is a lot of the stuff

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for robonaut was inspired based on human

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anatomy because we were developing a

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robotic hand just like ours and through

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that development we realized that not

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only can we use the same technology to

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make a robot move but we can put that

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same technology onto a human to make our

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movements easier

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so when we were talking earlier you said

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basically the human hand inspired the

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robot hand and now that design on the

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robot hand is is helping human hand

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again exactly very nice so um

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space walks are what we're thinking but

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there are other uses right correct

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for here on the ground correct um more

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terrestrial applications we're looking

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at um general motors is a direct

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application for assembly line workers

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they have to carry relatively heavy

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objects their tools can be relatively

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heavy some of the grasp that they're

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required can be relative relatively

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burdensome on the

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assembly line workers so this is to take

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off a lot of that so that they can do a

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repetitive task for longer without any

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uh inherent injury to their arms okay

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and i think we're going to talk with

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somebody from gm next so real quick can

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if i shake your hand will it crush me no