Inexpensive Complex Hand Model Twenty Years Later

Twenty years ago the author unveiled his inexpensive complex hand model, which reproduced every motion of the human hand. A control system programmed in the Forth language operated its actuators and sensors. Follow-on papers for this popular project were next presented in Texas, Canada and Germany. From this hand grew the author’s meter-tall robot (nicknamed ANNIE: Android With Neural Networks, Intellect and Emotions). It received machine vision, facial expressiveness, speech synthesis and speech recognition; a simian version also received a dexterous ape foot. New artificial intelligence features included op-amp neurons for OCR and simulated emotions, hormone emulation, endocannabinoid receptors, fear-trust-love mechanisms, a Grandmother Cell recognizer and artificial consciousness. Simulated illnesses included narcotic addiction, autism, PTSD, fibromyalgia and Alzheimer’s disease. The author gave 13 robotics-AI presentations at NASA in Houston since 2006. A meter-tall simian robot was proposed with gripping hand-feet for use with space vehicles and to explore distant planets and moons. Also proposed were: intelligent motorized exoskeletons for astronaut force multiplication; a cognitive prosthesis to detect and alleviate decreased crew mental performance; and a gynoid robot medic to tend astronauts in deep space missions. What began as a complex hand model evolved into an innovative robot-AI within two decades.