SRI Shows New 'Taurus' Bomb-Defusing Prototype at Stanford Robot Block Party

The fundamental technology behind the da Vinci Surgical System was originally developed at SRI International, and it's not like they've been sitting around building thumb-twiddling robots since then. This is Taurus, a little manipulator robot that was unveiled to the public for the first time at the National Robotics Week Robot Block Party at Stanford's VAIL automotive research lab. When I say Taurus is little, it's because the robot was specifically designed to fold itself into a box shape that's a mere 14" wide and 5" tall [36 cm wide and 13 cm tall]. It needs to be so compact because of what its job is: Taurus is meant to be shoved into small spaces in vehicles to detect and defeat vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices. It doesn't have wheels or legs or anything like that; instead, it's intended to be mounted directly onto the robotic arm of a Talon or a PackBot, which is an innovative way to go.