A cool device. Seems like its completely autonomous. Seeing as we used to have tails in our evolutionary past, I wonder if this could be fitted like a myoelectric prosthesis around the coccyx or something and function like a biological tail.
Attempting to replicate a tail seems tangential to the purpose of the device. The human coccyx is a poor location to anchor anything given how the vertebrae are not equipped to handle force, and there is effectively zero musculature to support it. The harness on the back appears much more practical.
Let's assume that for some reason attaching sensors/stimulatirs to the coccyx area lets us control tail like robots. Then the sensors could be attached in that area, and the actual tail could be mounted anywhere else, perhaps even remote to the astronaut's body.
I'm not sure that I buy that first assumption though. Measuring signals might be possible, and it might be possible to learn how to move the tail based on signals produced during conscious attempt to move the tail. But I don't see how it would be possible to send signals back to the brain.
That's an assumption that isn't rooted in anatomy. You need nerves to measure signals on. Look up the comparative anatomy of the human cauda equina vs that of a dog. Where you're thinking of plugging into the body, in a human you'd be left with the filum terminale, which is going to sorely disappoint if you are looking for nerve signals.
To get any meaningful spinal communication in this hypothetical scenario, you'd be looking higher up in the sacral region. Unless this hypothetical also includes some magic star trek technology, you'd be invasively implanting electrodes there, which sounds like a fantastic way to trigger fecal incontinence and chronic pain.
I get the fun idea of returning humans to our primate origins, but modern human anatomy has left us effectively nothing to work with. It's an anatomical dead end.
Right, thanks for the proper information. I guess you need to go pretty far into our past to get to a tailed ancestor, quick google says its 25-30myam, pre-hominid monkeys. Back scratcher manufacturers aren't going out of business anytime soon.
Completely naïve guess, but maybe it'd make sense to tap into the hip muscles to hint the controller system what you want the tail to do. In zero g, a slight rotation in the pelvis won't cause too much movement, but I think it would feel fairly natural to trigger a tail swing with a hip motion.
I think the tail attached to the back might be physically awkward or impractical. After all, there's probably a good reason that all animals with prehensile tails have it attached to the pelvis. But then again, it may just be an artifact of it being an extended spine.
Unironically, I think this is a fantastic idea that might actually catch on if/when humans start spending extended time in zero g environments. Tails do have a lot of advantages for navigating and manipulating 3D space.
Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to actually solve the problems with this design until we're actually in space regularly.
The final / functional version should be; as it stands though, it's a prototype / concept. It'll need a lot of sensors and fine-tuning to work as intended though.
Perhaps your assumption that stepper motors are the first solution to any motion problem speaks more about your lack of resourcefulness than the ingenuity of another solution.
I had the same expectations. Would be a super difficult control problem I think, with stuff like the end of the tails motion range, collisions, lack of ability to predict the motions of actual limbs and so on. Perhaps a 2D model could be a useful approach to this problem, with super low friction swivel chairs too high for the feet to interact with the ground?
Might even be an interesting playground for Neuralink. Robotic tails with a diffuse control from the brain, now that would put the "furries" comments elsewhere in the thread on the next level!
I've seen a few EEG based prosthetic controls in pre-pandemic cons. I think one was a DIY hacker project to control a tail, another was a commercial thing just for ears: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurowear
The wings are doing a lot more work than the tail in that situation. For quick rotations in 3D, gyroscopic forces would probably be better to utilize than a tail
Doesn't need to be in zero-G, just dangling a dummy off a harness should be enough. For attitude control I'd imagine gyros would be much more pragmatic, like a smaller scale 3D version of https://www.roborigger.com.au/
I wonder if this is inspired by the Ousters from Dan Simmons' Hyperion, who're described as using a prosthetic tail to move around in zero-g environments.
I don't know what's going on with that site but it partially loads and a few seconds later I get a warning that JS is slowing Firefox down. Clicking stop does nothing, hitting the back arrow does nothing, etc. I had to close the tab completely.
It's a really cool idea that I don't think I've seen in the scifi I've watched/read. But given this is a Media Lab project I expect the claims and capabilities to be wildly overstated and the project to go nowhere.
For moving in zero-G, I wonder if a Batman-style grapple-gun might be useful. Make the grapple slow and maneuverable so that once you fire it, it will always grab on to a loop or bulkhead or whatever.
But for floating in place, that tail feels like the right solution. Although if you did have a magical automatic grapple gun, maybe using 3 of them at once would also keep you in place very well. (although the cables might get annoying!)
in the anime Mobile Suit Gundam it's an established concept that the suits used 'AMBAC' to coordinate in space[0], which is really just a computer coordinated method of flailing the limbs on the robot to get inertia and mass to do its' thing to move the robot without thrusters, similar to a mass wheel but without the needed additional weight of a flywheel.
I always sort of wished that they had animated the little micromovements into the suits to show this feature more readily ,but production costs and weird looking movement generally prevented AMBAC from ever being demonstrated visually.
A lot more impressive than I expected, with a combination of Kevlar/Carbon black filled UHMWPE/PEEK and radiation shielding it might actually be able to do the work asked of it.
Reminds me of the robotic hand from big bang theory. I could use a tail. This seems like one of those things that might catch on with normies. They should do a product launch.
If you click “Manage Options” on the data collection popup, the switches toggle between two slightly different shades of grey, which is mildly infuriating.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 11.6 ms ] threadI'm not sure that I buy that first assumption though. Measuring signals might be possible, and it might be possible to learn how to move the tail based on signals produced during conscious attempt to move the tail. But I don't see how it would be possible to send signals back to the brain.
To get any meaningful spinal communication in this hypothetical scenario, you'd be looking higher up in the sacral region. Unless this hypothetical also includes some magic star trek technology, you'd be invasively implanting electrodes there, which sounds like a fantastic way to trigger fecal incontinence and chronic pain.
I get the fun idea of returning humans to our primate origins, but modern human anatomy has left us effectively nothing to work with. It's an anatomical dead end.
I think the tail attached to the back might be physically awkward or impractical. After all, there's probably a good reason that all animals with prehensile tails have it attached to the pelvis. But then again, it may just be an artifact of it being an extended spine.
Unironically, I think this is a fantastic idea that might actually catch on if/when humans start spending extended time in zero g environments. Tails do have a lot of advantages for navigating and manipulating 3D space.
Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to actually solve the problems with this design until we're actually in space regularly.
The final / functional version should be; as it stands though, it's a prototype / concept. It'll need a lot of sensors and fine-tuning to work as intended though.
Like how animals in real life use tails.
Just rather than on earth it's balance, it'd be consistent direction.
Might even be an interesting playground for Neuralink. Robotic tails with a diffuse control from the brain, now that would put the "furries" comments elsewhere in the thread on the next level!
Would be great if it also helps to maintain flight direction, like a squirrel tail.
But probably difficult to test in weightless conditions on a student project budget.
No there isn't, although you might have some cosmonauts doing a few years of it, it's now a long term liveable condition.
I don't know what's going on with that site but it partially loads and a few seconds later I get a warning that JS is slowing Firefox down. Clicking stop does nothing, hitting the back arrow does nothing, etc. I had to close the tab completely.
Here's an alternative link: https://www.hackster.io/news/mit-s-robotic-tail-could-aid-cr...
...and the MIT media lab page about it: https://www.media.mit.edu/articles/mit-s-robotic-tail-could-...
It's a really cool idea that I don't think I've seen in the scifi I've watched/read. But given this is a Media Lab project I expect the claims and capabilities to be wildly overstated and the project to go nowhere.
But for floating in place, that tail feels like the right solution. Although if you did have a magical automatic grapple gun, maybe using 3 of them at once would also keep you in place very well. (although the cables might get annoying!)
I always sort of wished that they had animated the little micromovements into the suits to show this feature more readily ,but production costs and weird looking movement generally prevented AMBAC from ever being demonstrated visually.
This concept reminds me a lot of that.
[0]: https://gundam.fandom.com/wiki/Active_Mass_Balance_Auto-Cont...
I really enjoyed Alice Grove. I think I remember reading, somewhere, that he’s working on something similar, these days.