I don’t know about you, but even if you left me in a room all day long to conjure up something robotic, I don’t think the thought of a robotic armpit would ever cross my mind. Kevin Grennan, a London-based designer however, has a clearly different outlook, as he designed this robotic armpit which is similar to that of human armpits – meaning it sweats. The whole idea behind this is to make use of odors to improve human-robot interaction.
For starters, how about mounting this device to a bomb-disposal robot, and sending it on a mission to disarm an explosive? The robot, going about its task, would start to sweat and fill the air with a similar chemicals that is found in human sweat when we’re afraid. According to Grennan, the whole idea behind this project would be to explore one’s interest in how “more complex and private parts of the human body would be translated onto [a] robot.”
Hopefully robots in the future on cramped public buses won’t utilize such armpits, otherwise it might just smell worse than the situation already is. How about this, making those robotic ‘pits emit deodorant instead?