What's better than a weak, meatbag human and a clumsy DARPA robot? A machine that mixes the two; a robot with a human brain. That is exactly what MIT is trying to make with the help of its new mech suit.

Instead of trying to make a human-brained robot by a more sci-fi brain-in-a-jar method, MIT's prototype contraption allows a human pilot to put on a suit that will ten remote control a robot doppelganger like a big ol' metal puppet. But while the concept is simple, the application is a little more sophisticated.

For starters, there's the issue of balance. In order to make sure the robot doesn't fall over as many humanoid robots tend to do , the pilot's robot suit actually exerts force to mimic what the robot is undergoing. The result is that the pilot's reflexes will take over, and the subsequent movements will balance the bot.

As for seeing what you're doing, the robot comes outfitted with a camera on its head, and the pilot gets to wear some VR goggles to see from the robot's point of view. The experience is probably a little uncanny, especially because the robot's hands are controlled not by the pilot's fingers but by buttons.

Still, if taken to the point where a human in one of these suits can meticulously navigate a robot clone around a dangerous space, there are tons of applications from disaster scenarios like Fukushima to first-person exploration of places like the bottom of the sea. That, and stage one hell of a season of BattleBots.

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Source: MIT News

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