The ANDI robot was developed to help scientists better understand how extreme heat affects the human body. (Image Credit: Christopher Goulet/ASU)
The United States is expected to get hit with higher temperatures and more intense heat waves in the next few decades. This can devastate people’s health and lead to their death. Arizona State University (ASU) researchers repurposed the first walking manikin to breathe, sweat, and shiver like a human. Dubbed ANDI and built by Thermetrics, the robot is designed to help scientists better understand the effects a heatwave has on humans.
“ANDI sweats; he generates heat, shivers, walks and breathes,” said Konrad Rykaczewski, associate professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy. “There's a lot of great work out there for extreme heat, but there's also a lot missing. We're trying to develop a very good understanding (of how heat impacts the human body) so we can quantitatively design things to address it.”
The robot replicates the functionalities in the human body, such as changing skin and core temperature. (Image Credit: Christopher Goulet/ASU)
ANDI features heat flux sensors, temperature sensors, and sweat-generating pores that individually control 35 surface areas to replicate the functionalities of the human body. In addition, the robot has internal cooling chambers that move cool water throughout the body, keeping the bot at a cool temperature when placed in hot environments. It achieves that while measuring solar radiation, infrared radiation from the ground, and convection from the air. The team also built a heat chamber called the “Warm Room” for ANDI, allowing them to run heat-exposure simulations based on any region in the world. It’s made of advanced technologies to control solar radiation, the wind, and temperature (140° F max).
Clothing companies have already used some of these sweating robots for garment testing. But only ASU's robot is compatible with outdoor use. That's more convenient because it means scientists can perform experiments in very hot environments and study solar radiation effects.
Over the Summer, the team plans to pair ANDI with MaRTY, ASU’s biometeorological heat robot, to work together and better understand human sweating mechanisms. (Image Credit: Christopher Goulet/ASU)
The team wants to test their heat-sensitive robot around Phoenix this Summer to determine how extreme heat affects various age groups and body types. They then plan to use their observations to create technologies to keep people safe from heat stroke and help prevent deaths from extreme heat.
“We can move different BMI models, different age characteristics and different medical conditions [into ANDI],” said Ankit Joshi, an ASU research scientist leading the modeling work and the lead operator of ANDI. “A diabetes patient has different thermal regulation from a healthy person. So we can account for all this modification with our customised models.”
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