UPCT researchers have developed a biomimetic robotic hand and an algorithm that allows it to give orders, process and receive information from sensors, imitating the way the human brain does. These results are part of the work carried out in the doctoral thesis of Francisco García Córdova, currently a professor in the Department of Thermal and Fluid Engineering at the UPCT.
The algorithm developed is much simpler than those currently used by robots, even those that use Artificial Intelligence, which opens the door to future developments.
García “manages the variables in a less complex, faster and gentler way,” explains the co-director of the thesis, Toribio Fernández Otero, principal investigator of the Electro-Chemo-Biomimicry Experimental and Modeling group.
During his doctoral thesis, García has managed to get this robotic hand to reproduce the gripping movements of a human being better than current robots do.
Applications can be transferred to various fields. Among them, developing devices for medicine, such as making a probe that can bend as it passes through an artery and in a more precise way. It can also be applied in robotics and marine technology control systems.
«The muscle that we have developed in the Electrochemistry laboratories of the UPCT is such a natural adaptation that with the algorithm that we have developed it has the same actuating and sensing characteristics as human muscles, so it is capable of feeling cold or heat, fatigue or feel the weight, for example,” adds Professor García.
Researchers have worked with tiny muscles, between a few millimeters and two centimeters in length, capable of holding the object stably and knowing its weight.
García Córdova has developed algorithms for different types of electromechanical devices.
The doctoral thesis, entitled ‘Bio-inspired neural control algorithms for applications in biomimetic robotics’, recently defended, has received the highest qualification: Outstanding Cum Laude. It is directed by Antonio Guerrero and Toribio Fernández.
