Researchers have created a machine that could change the way we react to natural disasters. Kumagai Gumi from Japan, the University of Tsukuba, the Nara Institute for Science and Technology and ETH Zurich in Switzerland have built a huge robot hand with an AI-controlled excavation system that gives areas in which human workers are at risk, precision and security.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQJG1XK8A8
Flooded river beds, eroding cliffs and complicated debris require tools that can be beaten and still working. The robot hand is the result of the Cafe (Collaborative AI Field Robot Everyther), a 5 -year project that is financed by Japan's cabinet office and Japan Science and Technology Agency. The researchers of ETH Zurich, who are experts for soft robotics, have designed it so that they use gently fragile objects, which is perfect for navigating the unpredictable rubble of a disaster area.
The hand reaches this by changing your grip on the shape and fragility of the object and using both intelligent sensors and flexible materials. Pneumatic actuators who are essentially air -powered muscles enable the fingers to bend in real time and change in real time, based on the feedback of pressure sensors in the palm and fingertips. During the Tsukuba demo, the hand picked up everything from soft foam blocks to jagged metal fragments and showed that it can switch from Featherlight to fixed handles while flying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJK7TD-WBFA
The Cafe project has a weight limit of 3 tons, so that the hand and the apparatus can be brought to inaccessible areas such as mountain valleys in which landslide have blocked the waterways. The main focus of the project lies on river navigation, also known as natural dams. If heavy rains or earthquakes drop the cliffs, rivers can withdraw and represent the risk of flooding for entire communities. Historically speaking, workers have risked their lives to build drainage pumps or build deposits by hand, as can be seen after the earthquake of Niigata-Chuetsu from 2004. The huge robot hand over a construction robot should take these threats by removing extensive bottlenecks and at the same time bringing people to safety.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7eotivngee
Kumagai Gumi, a Japanese construction company, brings practical expertise in heavy machines, while ETH Zurich brings the latest robotics research. Tsukuba University and the Nara Institute of Science and Technology complete the team and focus on integrating the hand with AI systems that do more than one tool. The ability of the hand to work in chaotic environments comes from her synergy with an automatic excavation -KI, which is also unveiled in the Tsukuba event. The Nara researchers created this AI with a technique called SIM-to-real reinforcement learning. It trains virtual simulations to master the excavation tasks before this know -how is used in real situations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83TJK5TQNT0
It was a simulated disaster point that found hidden objects and was removed because it adapted its approach based on obstacles. This is not a pre -programmed process, it learns and adapts in the running flies and decides how deeply they should dig and how much strength can be used. The Cafe project aims to reach the standby level (TRL) 5 until the end of the project in November 2025. The demo in August 2025 was TRL 4 and showed the basic functionality in a controlled environment. You will get closer to the use of the real world by November 2025.
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