Things You Can Do with an Extra Robotic Arm
From: IEEE Spectrum - 09/06/2017
By: Evan Ackerman

Researchers in Guy Hoffman's lab at Cornell are experimenting with is a new
robotic arm design that's a compromise between an extra arm mounted on the
torso and extra fingers (or an extra thumb) mounted on the hand. It's a
little stubby arm and gripper that you wear on your elbow.

The arm can rotate (pan) 120 degrees, and it can extend its gripper (which is
based on the Yale OpenHand) 16 centimeters. It weighs about 2 kg. With only 3
degrees of freedom, this arm is obviously not intended to be a direct
replacement for the capabilities of any of your existing limbs or digits, but
it can help you out in a number of useful ways.

Read the entire article and view a video (0:41) at:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/things-you-can-do-with-an-extra-robotic-arm

Links:
Guy Hoffman
http://guyhoffman.com

Cyborg Drumming Arm Makes Amputee Into Superhuman Musician
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/cyborg-drumming-arm-makes-amputee-into-superhuman-musician

How Open-Source Robotics Hardware Is Accelerating Research and Innovation
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/open-source-robotics-hardware-research-and-innovation

Yale OpenHand
https://www.eng.yale.edu/grablab/openhand

Related:
How to Control Those Extra Robotic Limbs You've Always Wanted
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/how-to-control-those-extra-robotic-limbs-youve-always-wanted

Here's That Extra Pair of Robot Arms You've Always Wanted
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/heres-that-extra-pair-of-robot-arms-youve-always-wanted

Here's That Extra Pair of Robot Fingers You've Always Wanted
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/humanoids/heres-that-extra-pair-of-robot-fingers-youve-always-wanted

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Cornell University researchers had one goal in mind for their experiments
with a robotic arm that straps onto the user's elbow: human augmentation. "We
wanted to add modes of motion that are not normally found in humans, as
opposed to prostheses and exoskeletons, which replace or boost existing human
capabilities," says grad student Vighnesh Vatsal. In surveys and tryouts, the
research team found that people were most likely to use an extra robotic arm
for professional tasks like holding and stabilizing objects on a construction
site or handling dangerous chemicals in a lab. But a few participants did
come up with less serious uses for the arm, such as "scratching my dog's ear
while I read a book."