Nursing robots are not a new concept. As early as October 2011, the University of Science and Technology of Nara, Japan, showed a robot that cares for the elderly to complete the dressing action. And as a nursing robot, BayMax, the medical assistant of Super Marines, strangely seems to be from another world.
Figure 1: Baymax of the Super Marines subverts the traditional image of nursing robots
Scientific basis for inflatable design
Traditionally, robots have always appeared in places far away from people's daily lives. They are only dealing with heavy, repetitive and boring work, such as assembling machinery on the assembly line and rushing to rescue disasters in times of crisis. The robot's closest job to our lives is just cleaning the room. Therefore, although Japanese dressing robots are directly involved in people's life processes, they still inherit the image of reinforced iron and bones of industrial robots.
The traditional shape of the Iron Warrior certainly does not meet the positioning of Baymax as a "warm man", and ultimately can design this soft, warm super cute image, thanks to a technical invention of Harvard University. According to director Don Hall, they discovered an inflatable robotic arm when they visited Harvard University.
A patent filed by Harvard University in 2010 introduced the structure of this robotic arm. This is a very simple robot design. The inflatable groove is formed in the elastic body, and the elastic body can be deformed by changing the air pressure in the inflation groove; and when the side walls of the elastic body select materials having different deformation coefficients, the direction and the amplitude of the deformation can be controlled. When a series of such elastomers are joined together with an inflatable tube that communicates with the inflator, a complete functional module is formed. This functional module, which is mainly composed of silicone, is the prototype of Baymax.
(Fig. 2: Structure of US Patent Application No. 13/885967 of Harvard University)
The advantage of the inflatable robot is that it can provide a gentle operation, suitable for the operation of fine items; and it can change the volume of the robot by filling and discharging gas to adapt to different working environments. In the experimental picture provided by the patent, we can see an inflatable robot with a diameter of about 14 cm gently grasping a mouse and mentioning the air. In the movie, Baymax took Hiro in his arms, like a mouse that was caught in the air.
(Figure 3: Baymax's image design is fully scientifically based)
The material and structural advantages of the inflatable design allow Baymax to avoid the risk of injury to people during contact and care. In this way, Disney's understanding of nursing robots has a sufficient scientific basis and realistic basis.
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