GM and NASA's robot assembly-line worker

[vztrt]

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-new...0208-nmnh.html

GM and NASA's robot assembly-line worker

JEZ SPINKS
February 8, 2010

General Motors and NASA have teamed up to build a robot assembly-line worker.

They would never go on strike, take a pay cheque, or cost billions in pension funds.

A next-generation workforce of advanced, human-like robots is being co-developed by General Motors engineers and NASA scientists, to be employed on both vehicle-assembly lines and in space.

The United State's biggest car maker and national space agency have announced they are collaborating under a new Space Act Agreement to build a "faster, more dextrous and technologically advanced robot" called Robonaut 2 (or R2).

Car companies have long used large robotic arms to manufacture vehicles, but the humanoid R2 features pivotal joints, fingers and opposable thumbs that would allow it to use tools and perform intricate work.

GM and NASA say Robonaut 2 is not designed to replace human employees but to instead work safely alongside people either in space or on Earth.

"For GM, this is about safer cars and safer plants," says General Motors' vice president for global research and development, Alan Taub. "When it comes to future vehicles, the advancements in controls, sensors and vision technology can be used to develop advanced vehicle safety systems.

"The partnership's vision is to explore advanced robots working together in harmony with people, building better, higher-quality vehicles in a safer, more competitive manufacturing environment."

The Robonaut 2 announcement comes just days after US President Barack Obama effectively ended NASA's program to return humans to the moon by 2020 in a speech encouraging more private industry involvement in space flights.

GM and NASA's last notable partnership were the Apollo Moon missions of the '60s. GM helped develop the iconic Lunar Rover Vehicle astronauts used for transport on the moon's surface, as well as the navigation systems for the Apollo missions.

General Motors is not the first car maker to dabble with robots. Japanese brand Honda since 2000 has developed a humanoid robot called ASIMO, an acronym for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility.