Remote manipulator

File:NTS - EMAD Facility 009.jpg

Manipulator arms inside the Hot Bay of the Engine Maintenance Assembly & Disassembly Facility, in Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site.

A remote manipulator, also known as a telefactor, telemanipulator, or waldo (after the 1942 short story "Waldo" by Robert A. Heinlein which features a man who invents and uses such devices), is a device which, through electronic, hydraulic, or mechanical linkages, allows a hand-like mechanism to be controlled by a human operator. The purpose of such a device is usually to move or manipulate hazardous materials for reasons of safety, similar to the operation and play of a claw crane game.

History

File:Pentecost-johnson-ellington-gore-ornl.jpg

Cayce Pentecost, Lyndon B. Johnson, Buford Ellington and Albert Gore Sr operating mechanical hands at a hot cell at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, on October 19, 1958

In 1945, the company Central Research Laboratories was given the contract to develop a remote manipulator for the Argonne National Laboratory. The intent was to replace devices which manipulated highly radioactive materials from above a sealed chamber or hot cell, with a mechanism which operated through the side wall of the chamber, allowing a researcher to stand normally while working.

The result was the Master-Slave Manipulator Mk. 8, or MSM-8, which became the iconic remote manipulator seen in newsreels and movies, such as The Andromeda Strain or THX 1138.

Robert A. Heinlein claimed a much earlier origin for remote manipulators. He wrote that he got the idea for "waldos" after reading a 1918 article in Popular Mechanics about "a poor fellow afflicted with myasthenia gravis ... [who] devised complicated lever arrangements to enable him to use what little strength he had." An article in Science Robotics on robots, science fiction, and nuclear accidents discusses how the science fiction waldos are now a major type of real-world robots used in the nuclear industry.

See also

• Glovebox
• Dextre
• Doctor Octopus
• Teleoperation
• Telerobotics
• Master/slave (technology)
• Avatar (computing)
• Pantograph
• Man-Machine

External links

• Central Research Laboratories web site
• A video of a Remote Manipulator being used to make an origami crane [1]
• Master-slave manipulator at Argonne National Laboratory [2]