A New Light on The Da Vinci Robot
Over the summer of 2004, Dr. John D. Enderle was reading The Da Vinci Code when he came across a segment based upon the lost sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci's robot. The readings sparked his interest and he began researching the history of this "lost" robot. He enlisted a team of students to research the structure and function of the robot. Information was limited due to the fact that the robot was created in 1495 and the estimated 14,000 pages of sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci are lost to the world of science and engineering.
Renovations for the 21st Century
Although we are attempting to recreate the basic structure of Da Vinci's original robot, we are designing it for the 21st century. The new technology includes vision, speech recognition and voice command, computer-integrated movements, and a more advanced body structure. Our design will simulate Da Vinci's pulley and gear systems (pictured at right).
We envision a robot that will have a mobile neck and the ability to track moving objects with it's "eyes." The robot will have two modes, one that will respond to computer commands and another to speech commands. Muscle modeling will be used to imitate natural human movements. The pulleys and gears of Da Vinci's original robot will be used along with the muscle models to mimic the functions of human anatomy.
