{{Short description|Device for controlling a hand-like mechanism}} [[File:NTS - EMAD Facility 009.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Manipulator arms inside the Hot Bay of the Engine Maintenance Assembly and Disassembly Facility at Area 25 of the Nevada Test Site]]
A '''remote manipulator''', also known as a '''telefactor''', '''telemanipulator''', or '''waldo''' (after the 1942 short story "Waldo" by Robert A. Heinlein),<ref>[http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=23 Technovelgy Science Fiction Dictionary: waldo]</ref> is a device which, through electronic, hydraulic, or mechanical linkages, allows a hand-like mechanism to be controlled by a human operator. The purpose of such a device is usually to move or manipulate hazardous materials for reasons of safety, similar to the operation and play of a claw crane game.
==History== [[File:Pentecost-johnson-ellington-gore-ornl.jpg|right|thumb|Cayce Pentecost, Lyndon B. Johnson, Buford Ellington and Albert Gore Sr operating mechanical hands at a hot cell at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, on October 19, 1958]] In 1945, the company Central Research Laboratories<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.destaco.com/crl-products-equipment.html |title=CRL history |access-date=2015-11-30 |archive-date=2015-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208150328/http://www.destaco.com/crl-products-equipment.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> was given the contract to develop a remote manipulator for the Argonne National Laboratory. The intent was to replace devices which manipulated highly radioactive materials from above a sealed chamber or hot cell, with a mechanism which operated through the side wall of the chamber, allowing a researcher to stand normally while working.
The result was the Master-Slave Manipulator Mk. 8, or MSM-8, which became the iconic remote manipulator<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.destaco.com/telemanipulators.html |title=Telemanipulator page |access-date=2015-11-30 |archive-date=2015-12-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151208134216/http://www.destaco.com/telemanipulators.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> seen in newsreels and movies, such as ''The Andromeda Strain'' or ''THX 1138''.
Robert A. Heinlein claimed a much earlier origin for remote manipulators.<ref name="CMK">{{citation |last=Heinlein |first=Robert A. |author-link=Robert A. Heinlein |chapter=Science fiction: its nature, faults and virtues |editor-last=Davenport |editor-first=Basil |title=The Science Fiction Novel |publisher=Advent |location=Chicago |year=1957 |publication-date=1959}}</ref> He wrote that he got the idea for the "waldos" used in his story after reading a 1918 article in ''Popular Mechanics'' about "a poor fellow afflicted with myasthenia gravis{{nbsp}}... [who] devised complicated lever arrangements to enable him to use what little strength he had." A 2021 article in ''Science Robotics'' on robots, science fiction, and nuclear accidents<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Robin |first1=Murphy |title=Robots, science fiction, and nuclear accidents |url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abj4344 |journal=Science Robotics |year=2021 |volume=6 |issue=55 |publisher=AAAS |doi=10.1126/scirobotics.abj4344 |pmid=34162746 |s2cid=235626467 |access-date=4 April 2023|url-access=subscription }}</ref> discusses how the science fiction waldos are now a major type of real-world robots used in the nuclear industry.
==See also== * Glovebox * Dextre * Doctor Octopus * Teleoperation * Telerobotics * Master/slave (technology) * Avatar (computing) * Pantograph * Man-Machine
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Wiktionary|waldo}} {{Commons category|Remote manipulators}}
* Central Research Laboratories [http://www.centres.com web site] * A video of a Remote Manipulator being used to make an origami crane [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5997080660276538391] * Master-slave manipulator at Argonne National Laboratory [http://www.anl.gov/Science_and_Technology/History/Anniversary_Frontiers/16master.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829234030/http://www.anl.gov/Science_and_Technology/History/Anniversary_Frontiers/16master.html |date=2008-08-29 }} * {{cite book |last=Zeleny |first=Milan |title=Human systems management: Integrating Knowledge, Management |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tbb3O5uigCAC&dq=waldo+nuclear+teleoperated&pg=PA142 |publisher=World Scientific |year=2005 |page=142 |isbn=981-02-4913-6}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Remote Manipulator}} Category:Robotic manipulation Category:Nuclear technology