This Little Robot Arm Is Worn Like a Wristwatch to Augment Your Hand

Robots come in as many form factors as there are applications for them. Sizes range from massive industrial machines to tiny bots the size of insects. In the field of robotic human augmentation, a lot of focus is put on large exoskeletons that can make a person stronger. Now, a joint effort between researchers from MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design is bringing robotic augmentation in the other direction with a small robotic arm that’s worn like a wristwatch.

That makes sense, because it was our ability to perform fine manipulations with our fingers—not our brute strength—that brought humanity to where we are today. The system the team came up allows a person to enhance their manipulation abilities by placing a little robotic arm on the wrist. While that arm is quite a bit bigger than your fingers, it still attempts to achieve a similar level of dexterity.

The platform is capable of that dexterity thanks to a series of customizable modules. A base module is placed on a wristband and provides power. The user can then stack various servo and sensor modules to build the robotic arm that suits their needs. Each module has its own ATtiny85 microcontroller, and the modules are chained together to communicate with I2C.

The modules can also be reprogrammed according to the user’s requirements with a small programmer that the module snaps onto. The team illustrates a number of possible applications for the device in their paper, including as haptic feedback and as a guitar-strumming assistant for musicians. Really through, it’s not designed for any specific task, and the modularity of the system would allow users to customize it for whatever purpose they want.