HERB, PerMMA and the cardioARM — three robots with ties to the Robotics Institute and the Quality of Life Technology Center (QoLTC) — are among 10 “helpful” robots highlighted in Popular Science’s August issue.
HERB, the Home Exploring Robotic Butler, is a wheeled robot being developed by the Robotics Institute and Intel Labs Pittsburgh for the QoLTC to help fetch items or clear away dirty dishes for people who may have difficulty with these tasks. PerMMA, the Personal Mobility and Manipulation Appliance, is another QoLTC project that is being developed at the University of Pittsburgh; it’s a wheelchair with two robotic arms for quadriplegics or people with other debilitating physical impairments. CardioARM is a rigid, yet flexible surgical tool for minimally invasive heart surgery that is based on the snakebots of RI associate professor Howie Choset and is being developed by Cardiorobotics Inc.