Meet Frida The Non-Union, Huggable Robot Who Loves Your Job

RedTracker| Frida is the name of Swiss manufacturer ABB’s new prototype robot, a non-union worker designed to be dexterous enough to replace a human being on the production floor. Being the futurists that we are, our first response to Frida was as a headless woman carrying on the tradition of females doing the majority of work around the world, with no say in the matter.

In fact Frida stands for Friendly Robot for Industrial Dual-arm Assembly. Prior robots have been males, ‘typically a huge, heavy piece of kit that’s expensive, not particularly flexible and too dangerous to position near human workers.’

See Frida in Action

Instead of the single, powerful robot arm that can wack humans in the head with a lethal blow, Frida looks like she can hug you. Her joints are designed to match how human joints move, except that she has a few tricks up her own sleeve. Frida can spin her wrist 720 degrees.

ABB stresses the fact that Frida exists to assist workers. But when we read in Fast Company that Frida is ‘designed to be clamped to a workbench and easily moved from its station, hence the built-in handle’, she sounds like s worker bee to us.

Frida also has a few ‘pinch points’. PLEASE, are you telling us that even female robots will still have to put up with fanny pinching?

Meet Frida| The New Female Robot Who Is A Team Player