Extreme heat caused by climate change – how do we protect our bodies against it? This US$500,000 robot is helping scientists come up with solutions
- ‘Andi’ – a humanoid robot developed at Arizona State University in the US – is covered in heat sensors and can ‘breathe’ and ‘sweat’ like a human
- The robot is ‘a very realistic way to experimentally measure how a human person responds to extreme climate’ without putting people themselves at risk
What happens to the body when a human gets heatstroke? How can we protect ourselves on a warming planet?
To answer these burning questions, researchers in the US state of Arizona have deployed a robot that can breathe, shiver and sweat.
The southwestern state’s capital, Phoenix, is currently enduring its longest heatwave in history: on July 21, the mercury exceeded 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) for the 22nd day in a row, an ominous demonstration of what is to come in a world affected by climate change.
For humans, such heat represents a potentially lethal threat, one that is still not fully understood. But for Andi – a one-of-a-kind humanoid robot at Arizona State University – it’s a lovely day out.
“He’s the world’s first outdoor thermal mannequin that we can routinely take outside and … measure how much heat he is receiving from the environment,” mechanical engineering professor Konrad Rykaczewski says.