Rescue robots, robots capable of mimicking emotions, robot surgeons ... Numerous advances in artificial intelligence in recent years. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States have designed a robot that can create tools from provided elements to get out of a problematic situation.
A MacGyver robot
Unveiled for the first time at the end of June at the Robotics: Science and Systems 2019 convention in Germany, the prototype of the robot "MacGyver" is a kind of long articulated black arm equipped with a clamp at its end. His nickname, he owes to the star character of the series of the same name, broadcast from the 1980s on television, in which a secret agent of the government is faced with missions of all kinds, which he fills every time thanks to his practical sense and system-to-system combinations. Using a potato as a battery, chewing gum to plug a leak, Angus MacGyver has become a stumbling block in TV culture.
Thanks to its artificial intelligence, and more particularly its statistical learning, it is able to solve tasks without being explicitly programmed for them. For example, learning that the bowl in front of him is hollow and can contain liquids, he understood that he could use it to build a spoon. During the tests, the robot was able to assemble hammers, spatulas, cleaning squeegees and screwdrivers.
Inspired by the failure of the Apollo 13 space mission
For now, the MacGyver robot is not yet able to identify the materials of the elements provided, but only their shape and how they can be assembled. "The hammers are solid and powerful tools, it is not necessary that he plans to build one from foam blocks", explains on the website of the university Lakshmi Nair, PhD student involved in research. "We want him to come to that level of reasoning, and that's what we're working on right now."
It was the Apollo 13 space mission that gave the idea to the team of researchers to design this prototype. In 1970, the explosion of an oxygen tank during the voyage between the Earth and the Moon aborted the third mission of the American program, forcing the crew on board to return to Earth as soon as possible. If the crew managed to find a solution to save their skin, this operation was not without stress, and took time. "We want to create robots that can help humans in these situations, so they are less under pressure," said Lakshmi Nair on the university website. An argument already advanced by the designers of robot surgeons, who extol the precision and the obvious absence of stress of the latter.