Flexible Sensors Make Robot Skin

Roland Piquepaille writes "In recent years, lots of efforts have been made to give robots the ability to hear and see. But what about the sense of touch? Unlike us, robots don't have sensitive skin. But this is about to change. By using organic, or plastic, field-effect transistors as pressure sensors deposited on a flexible material, researchers at the University of Tokyo have created an artificial skin which will give robots the sense of touch. The prototype has a density of 16 sensors per square centimeter, far from the 1,500 of our fingertips. When this density increases and when the problem of the reliability of this kind of transistors is solved, the researchers say this artificial skin will also be used for car seats or gym carpets. Expect to see them in four or five years. More details and a picture of a robotic hand using organic transistors as pressure sensors."

Comments

Re:What's with the Piquepaille posts?

[kbahey]

I think you are trolling. I wish I had mod points to mod you down. Nice tactic to get your gripe against Roland thru, by adding some links, and getting a +5 Interesting. Way to go moderators.

It seems that you posted other posts as well again Roland Piquepaille, as an AC.

You have a point that Roland gets more air time here on Slashdot than most.

But he does not plagiarize any more than any news site who relies on various news sources. He collects the info and provides links to the source with some commentary. Just like Slashdot, Engadget, and a million other sites out there.

Seems proper to me.