[Tyler]

Festo ExoHand and PolyPlus at Hannover Messe
3 May 2012, 6:17 am

       

Hannover Messe, the world's biggest industrial fair, took place April 23rd through 27th. Among the many exhibits there were Festo's ExoHand, which connects a glove, with an attached exoskeleton containing sensors, to a robotic hand with a very nearly duplicate exoskeleton, operated by pneumatic actuators. The robotic hand mimics the movements of the glove, but can do so with amplified force. Also of note was a new collection of technologies from PolyPlus Battery Company, all based upon lithium metal cores encapsulated in solid electrolyte membranes and a unique compliant seal. The solid electrolyte is highly conductive to lithium ions, but impervious to liquids and gases. The lithium core is electrochemically active but chemically isolated from the external electrolyte, allowing the construction of lithium-metal/aqueous batteries including lithium/air and lithium/water with unprecedented energy density. PolyPlus is developing rechargeable and non-rechargeable Li-Air, and Li-Seawater batteries based on protected Li electrodes. One version which relies upon sea water can pack more than three times the watt-hours per kilogram of current lithium batteries packs and more than 40 times that of lead-acid batteries, making it a perfect power source for autonomous submarines, for example.

Source: robots.net

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