Scientists at a university in Singapore showed off the capabilities of their robots by having one of the machines assemble an Ikea chair. According to a story by Ben Hooper, at UPI.com, the Nanyang Technological University team said they programmed the robot with the order of the instructions and then spread the parts randomly. The robot spent about 11 minutes planning its movements before building the chair in about nine minutes.
"The job of assembly, which may come naturally to humans, has to be broken down into different steps, such as identifying where the different chair parts are, the force required to grip the parts, and making sure the robotic arms move without colliding into each other," assistant professor Pham Quang Cuong says on the school's website. The researchers published their findings in the April issue of Science Robotics. Read the story at UPI.com.
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