The basic difference differentiating robots from humans is the natural bodily actions and
processes we can do that robots can’t. This includes digestion, urination, or perspiration. Some
wisdomous minds are constantly working towards deleting these differences between humans
and their “humanoid” robots. A humanoid robot that can breathe and perspire is being used by
Arizona State University researchers to examine how severe heat affects the body, including butt sweat.
However bizarre ANDI (and its rear end) may appear, the gadget may aid scientists in creating
better goods, techniques, and therapies to protect populations as the world continues its risky,
climate change-related warming tendencies.
According to scientists, they have created the first “breathing, sweating, shivering” robot, which
was created to adapt to various temperatures.
ANDI is a heat-sensitive “thermal mannequin” with 35 independently controllable surfaces that
have pores that bead sweat just like human skin.
Meet ANDI!
Thermetrics created the NSF Major Research Instrumentation Grant-funded ANDI specifically
for ASU. He has 35 distinct surface regions that are all independently regulated with temperature
sensors, heat flux sensors, and pores that bead perspiration. He can simulate the thermal
functions of the human body.
Andi’s body is designed with internal cooling channels that circulate cool water throughout it,
allowing him to stay cool enough to withstand intense heat while analyzing complex factors such
as solar radiation from the sun, infrared radiation from the ground, and convection from the
surrounding air that affects how hot we perceive various environments.
“You can’t put humans in dangerous extreme heat situations and test what would happen,”
stated Jennifer Vanos, whose studies have shown a link between excessive heat and health,
particularly in active groups like youngsters, outdoor workers, and sports. “But there are
situations we know of in the Valley where people are dying of heat and we still don’t fully
understand what happened. ANDI can help us figure that out.”
The researchers are also hoping that ANDI, which even has internal “organs” patterned after their
human counterparts may provide some further light on deaths that have been linked to the heat
in the past.
Summertime Experiments
Together, ANDI and MaRTy, ASU’s biometeorological heat robot, will be used by researchers
this summer to better understand human sweating mechanisms, such as altering skin temperature
and changing core temperature, and to determine how particular surroundings may increase the
risk of heat stress.
The ANDI and MaRTy team will first be testing in heat-sensitive locations, such as open streets
and old mobile homes where the AC stopped working, on the campus of Arizona State
University in Tempe. Later, they will go across the larger Phoenix region.
“MaRTy can tell us how the built environment modifies the amount of heat that hits the body, but
MaRTy doesn’t know what happens inside the body,” said Middel, who studies urban climate and
how urban environments influence weather hazards. “ MaRTy measures the environment, and
then ANDI can then tell us how the body can react.”
