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Russia sends its first humanoid robot Fedor into space
Why is it in news?
- Russia launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.
More in news
- Fedor:(1) Robot named Fedor- acronym for “Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research”, is the first ever sent up by Russia.(2) Fedor blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.(3) The silvery anthropomorphic robot stands 1.80 metres (5 foot 11 inches) tall and weighs 160 kilogrammes (353 pounds).(4) Fedor has Instagram and Twitter accounts with posts saying it is learning new skills such as opening a bottle of water. In the station, it will trial those manual skills in very low gravity.(5) Fedor copies human movements, a key skill that allows it to remotely help astronauts or even people on Earth to carry out tasks while the humans are strapped into an exoskeleton.(6) Fedor is described as potentially useful on Earth for working in high radiation environments, demining and tricky rescue missions.
- New emergency rescue system: Soyuz ships are normally manned on such trips, but no humans are travelling in order to test a new emergency rescue system.
- Fedor not the first:(1) Fedor is not the first robot to go into space.(2) In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot developed with General Motors that had a similar aim of working in high-risk environments.(3) It was flown back to Earth in 2018 after experiencing technical problems.(4) In 2013, Japan sent up a small robot called Kirobo along with the ISS's first Japanese space commander.(5) Developed with Toyota, it was able to hold conversations — albeit only in Japanese.
Humanoid robot
- A humanoid robot is a robot with its body shape built to resemble the human body.
- Androids are humanoid robots built to aesthetically resemble humans.
- Humanoid robots are now used as research tools in several scientific areas. Researchers study the human body structure and behavior (biomechanics) to build humanoid robots.
Source
The Hindu