Italian robot Centauro has 4 legs, 2 arms and karate moves
Centauro is a robot that you would expect in a video of robot makers deluxe Boston Dynamics . This rescue robot, however, comes from the sleeve of the [19099008] Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia which, with some subsidy from the EU, has been busy for a while to make the four-legged robot. The name is no coincidence: in addition to the four legs, the Centauro also has two arms and thus it looks like a cross between a horse and a man.
With a meter and a half the robot is also big enough to really do something. The robot can lift up to six kilos and is multifunctional when it comes to the limbs. The four legs have rollers, but the arms end up in a kind of vertical plates that can be used to hack into something. The arms can also be used to move the robot forward on treacherous terrain. It is the intention that the Centauro will be used in rescue operations in places where the site itself is dangerous and semi-impassable. The makers themselves pick up the accident at the reactor in Fukushima as an example where a robot as the Centauro would be more than welcome.
He can not do it alone
The Centauro is not completely autonomous: a driver is needed to have the robot do complicated tasks, but he has no joysticks to do so. There is a full-bodied suit that the driver puts on where he can see what the robot sees, hears and even feels with the help of haptic feedback. The two ‘hands’ have the shape of an ax in this test because they are used to cut through something. With a different type of hand (which can also be used by the driver via force feedback as if it were his own hand), Centauro can also be used to connect a hose or to open a tap.
Because both legs and arms can rotate on three axes, the Centauro is able to mimic most human movements reasonably well. However, it also makes it possible to use the Centauro in places where other robots can not come. If the arms are also used for movement, it can really come almost anywhere. Super cool so, although it is not yet clear to what extent the robot is ready to be used. If you look at the Xbox Kinect that is used as a visual center by the robot, I would say that we are still in the prototype phase, but it can go fast. In any case, the robot can already be deployed without having to attach cables to it, so that is quite a lot