‘Manny’ Walks, Talks --but Robot Can’t Run : Army Mechanical Man Has Key Role in Chemical Warfare Test Program

When it came time for a crew of 20 scientists to unveil the most man-like robot ever made, their palms got a bit sweaty. And in a first for robotic science, so did the robot’s.

This mechanical man, according to its creators, is the most human-looking and human-acting robot in existence. It walks. It talks. It even breathes and sweats. And its normal body temperature runs at a steady 98.6 degrees.

But one feature makes this humanoid characteristically nonhuman: It can withstand the clouds of deadly chemicals soon to be aimed its way in an Army program to test protective clothing for U.S. soldiers.

The $3-million robot, pivotal to the Army’s chemical warfare testing program, mimics elements of human physiology and movement so closely that it can be subjected to tests no human could safely withstand.

Exposed to Nerve Gas

Inside a sealed, stainless-steel chamber at the Army’s sprawling Dugway Proving Ground in western Utah, the computer-run robot will be dressed in experimental protective clothing and exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Should the suit spring a leak, sensors built into the robot’s thick layer of rubber skin will detect as little as one-billionth of an ounce of poison gas.

The robot’s expanding “lungs” and heaving chest, combined with its 15 joints and 42 forms of programmed movement from jumping jacks to salutes, can put stress on the clothing and its seams in the same areas as would a human being. This enables the Army to determine whether a suit would leak when worn by a soldier working in a toxic environment.

And because a soldier’s body heat and perspiration could alter garments enough to let poison gas seep through, the robot can perspire and exhale warm, moist air.

The robot--named “Manny” by its makers--was built by a private research firm, Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Washington state. Manny starts work in October.

Kids Are Blase

Though Manny’s abilities are remarkable by engineering standards, he drew shrugs from some who saw him in his only public appearance, at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry in February. Thanks to the likes of “Robocop” and “The Terminator,” many people think creatures like Manny already inhabit the planet. Manny resembles C3PO of “Star Wars” movie fame (only “handsomer,” according to Army spokeswoman Kathy Whitaker). “So many kids think, ‘So what?’ ” Battelle spokesman Greg Koller said. “In fact, what they did was amazing.”

Never before has a robot had pores that perspire, lungs that expand, a chest that heaves with every breath and a respiration rate that increases with exercise.

Figuring out how to mimic human movement posed the biggest challenge for the engineers, said David Bennett, the Battelle scientist who managed the two-year project to create Manny. Creating motion at the robot’s joints are hydraulic cylinders with pistons that move in and out.

The 6-foot, 187-pound robot--the average size of Army soldiers--moves smoothly. While its range of movements includes push-ups, sit-ups, squats and drop kicks, the robot is a bit uncoordinated when it comes to keeping its balance. A support rod is connected to the small of Manny’s back.

Though programmable to perform any movement--a cable links him to his brain, a personal computer--the robot is limited to a certain speed. “He is no athlete,” Bennett said. “He can walk at three miles an hour but he can’t run.”

Electrical Heaters

Tubes and pivots form the robot’s skeleton. And a thick layer of butyl rubber--compatible with toxins--protects the robot’s intricate insides from poison gas. Electrical heaters control the body and skin temperatures.

Instead of 2 million sweat glands, the robot is equipped with a network of tiny plastic tubes--a few thousandths of an inch in diameter--that deliver heated water to the surface of the skin. Tiny holes cut every few inches allow evaporating water to escape.

An air bladder is the robot’s “lungs,” and is pressurized cyclically so it expands and contracts, allowing Manny’s chest to heave as it breathes. Manny does not inhale air from the contaminated chamber, said Bennett, because scientists were concerned that the toxins would damage its insides; its air supply is piped to it through a tube running along the support rod.

Human-looking robots are not exactly in high demand, Koller said, because they generally are less efficient than the more conventional, and far less human-looking, assembly-line robots. Still, Koller said Battelle has received several requests for sweating humanoids, primarily from makers of athletic equipment and clothing.

But he said there will be no more computer-operated humanoids inducted into the Army--despite Manny’s alleged interest, thanks to his programmer, in a female counterpart.

“He has expressed an interest in another robot,” the Army’s Whitaker said. “I guess he’s lonely.”

At $3 million per robot, that’s too bad, she said. “We don’t plan on buying another one.”