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What happens in the human body during heat stroke? And how to guard against it, on a warming planet? To answer these burning questions, researchers are working in the southwest of the United States with a robot capable of breathing, shivering and sweating.
Despite the ambient 47°C, Andi can stay for hours under the murderous sun of Phoenix. An unequaled endurance that excites the scientists in charge of walking this unique humanoid on the campus of the State University of Arizona. “This is the world’s first thermal dummy that you can take outside on a regular basis, to measure the amount of heat it receives from the environment”, mechanical engineering professor Konrad Rykaczewski told AFP. The puppet is “a very realistic way of measuring (…) the reaction of a human being to extreme climatic conditions.”
Its simple crash-test dummy look hides treasures of technology. Beneath its epoxy carbon fiber epidermis, a network of connected sensors evaluates the heat that diffuses through the body. Andi also has an internal cooling and pore system, to allow it to breathe and let sweat bead. All managed on 35 independent thermal zones, in order to be able to distribute its perspiration. Like humans, the robot sweats more from the back than from the forearms.
Until now, only about ten models of this type existed and none could venture outside. They were mainly used by sports equipment manufacturers to test their technical clothing in thermal chambers.
Understanding Hyperthermia
The robot will help to better understand hyperthermia, this disease of the 21st century which threatens a growing part of the world’s population because of global warming. For obvious ethical reasons, “nobody studies the increase in body temperature while someone is suffering from heat stroke”, recalls Mr. Rykaczewski. With Andi, it becomes possible, in real conditions.
Accompanied by Marty, a mobile weather station that notably measures the heat reflected by the buildings around it, the robot takes its first steps outside in the midst of a historic heat wave in Phoenix. The capital of Arizona is currently experiencing its longest heat wave on record: Friday, the mercury exceeded 43°C for a 22nd day in a row. This desert metropolis in the American Southwest is an ideal laboratory to prepare for the climate of tomorrow.
“If the future of Paris looks like Phoenix today, we can learn a lot about how we design buildings”continues Mr. Rykaczewski. “How to modify them? And how to change what we wear? How to modify our behaviors and adapt them to temperatures of this order of magnitude?”
Andi is also infinitely reprogrammable. The research team can “create digital twins of the dummy to study different segments of the population”, says Jennifer Vanos, a climatologist involved in the project. Young people, athletes, people who are obese or in fragile health… Scientists can thus simulate the thermoregulation mechanisms specific to each person – the older you get, the less you sweat, for example.
Protecting the most vulnerable
Unlike ordinary mortals, Andi can also survive in the middle of a dodger without spilling a drop, during experiments where perspiration is not a major factor. How to face a hot wind, a humid heat, with what type of clothes? Scientists are going to put its all-terrain profile to the test in multiple situations. Their research will be useful for designing clothing against the heat, rethinking the urban planning of our cities or protecting the most vulnerable.
In Phoenix, which opens dozens of “cooling points” each summer for the homeless, their findings could guide the action of social workers. “How long does a person have to go to a center to get their temperature down to a safe level? We can answer that question with Andi,” enthuses Ms. Vanos.
The team also dreams of developing inexpensive sensors, to be used on construction sites to adjust the duration of work according to the heat actually felt on site and the health of the workers. At present, hours are often limited only according to the general weather, regrets Mr. Rykaczewski. It would allow “to move towards more security, rather than having these monolithic recommendations by city, by state, by country”, concludes the researcher.