Meet Frank, the world's first walking, talking bionic man

It was designed by Dr Bertolt Meyer from the University of Zurich, built by a team of engineers in London and is currently on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington as part of The Incredible Bionic Man exhibition.

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Researchers from Zurich have unveiled the world’s first walking, talking bionic man called Frank, short for Frankenstein, pictured. The six-foot robot has a fully functioning circulatory system with a beating heart and lungs made from 28 artificial body parts and synthetic organs

Frank, pictured left, was designed by Dr Bertolt Meyer from the University of Zurich, right. Dr Meyer is a social psychologist and has a bionic hand. Frank was built by a team of engineers in London and is on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington in an exhibition called ‘The Incredible Bionic Man’

THE INCREDIBLE BIONIC MAN

Frank, short for Frankenstein and named after Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, is fitted with 200 processors.

It has 70 circuit boards and 26 individual motors.

The ‘skin’ of the robot features more than one million sensors while a functional circulatory system, including a heart, powers it from the inside.

Frank’s face is made of silicone and is a replica of Dr Meyer’s.

‘The goal is not to replace the human being,’ Dr. Meyer told a press conference on Thursday.

‘The ultimate goal is to provide technology to fix a broken person.’

Dr. Meyer is a social psychologist and was the model for Frank because he has a bionic hand himself.

A total of 200 processors fitted to Frank are powered through 70 circuit boards and 26 individual motors.

The skin of the robot features over one million sensors that can detect touch and changes in temperature.

The London engineers built Frank using 28 of ‘the most advanced artificial body parts available today from laboratories and research centres around the world’ as well as implantable synthetic organs.

Frank’s face was then made of silicone and is a replica of Dr Meyer’s.

Engineers designed the Bionic Man to enable several of its ‘human’ parts to operate without a body.

For example, although the robot is fitted with limbs, it doesn’t have a brain to make them work, instead it is controlled remotely through a computer connected by Bluetooth.

Frank is capable of walking and can talk and answer questions with the help of this human controller, via a laptop.

Frank: the bionic man who can walk, talk and has his own…

Dr Meyer, pictured right, and engineer James Pope, left, help six-foot Frank as it walks at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. The robot is controlled using a laptop, which can also be used to help it talk and answer questions

Frank’s name is taken from a Mary Shelley novel in which character Victor Frankenstein creates a living ‘monster’ from human parts. This image of Boris Karloff is taken from the 1931 Frankenstein film

Dr Meyer is set to explain more about how Frank was built and what it is capable of during a one-hour documentary to be aired on the Smithsonian Channel on Sunday 20 October at 9pm PDT.

The documentary is only available to viewers in the U.S.

Meyer’s did tell reporters: ‘A female bionic companion would be great.

‘Unfortunately, I’m missing a few other important parts.’

Frank’s name is taken from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.

In the book, published originally in 1818, Victor Frankenstein creates a living ‘monster’ from human body parts.

Frank is also reminiscent of the Terminator robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 film of the same name and the Six Million Dollar Man, played by Lee Majors in the 1970s, who was a fictional astronaut with bionic limbs called Steve Austin.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2465853/Meet-Frank-worlds-walking-talking-bionic-man-complete-artificial-limbs-beating-HEART.html#ixzz2i5PV1q46