NYU Researchers Create Cheap, Flexible Pressure-Based Interface

Al writes "A super-cheap, thin and flexible touch interface developed by researchers at New York University and could be used to add touch sensing to all sorts of gadgets and devices. It measures a change in electrical resistance when a person or object applies different pressure. The "Inexpensive Multi-Touch Pressure Acquisition Devices (IMPAD)" consists of two sheets of plastic containing parallel lines of electrodes. The sheets are arranged so that the electrodes cross, creating a grid and each intersection acts as a pressure sensor. The sheets are also covered with a layer of force-sensitive resistor (FSR) ink, a type of ink that has microscopic bumps on its surface. So, when something coated in the ink is pressed, the bumps move together and touch, conducting electricity."

Comments

LEPs where are you?

[OMGcAPSLOCK]

Weren't Light Emitting Polymers supposed to have offered all of this about 10 years ago? Whatever happened to them?

And this differs... how .....?

[Ancient_Hacker]

And this differs from the for over 20-years available touchpads, how?

Resistive papers have been used for oh, 70 years now, ever since the Western Union Teledeltos fax machines, circa 1938.

I recall my father using those sheets to simulate heat flow inside the CDC 8600. A ten cent analog computer of sorts.

No more whiteboards

[Spacepup]

If I were a betting woman, I'd put money that this technology is going to replace white-boards and chalkboards at universities everywhere. No more having to deal with dried up markers or missing chalk.

Robot skin

[Facegarden]

Looks like this could go a long way towards providing some very effective "Skin" for a robot, to sense contact all over.
-Taylor

Re:Robot skin

[Paul Fernhout]

I agree. What I find most interesting about this is the robotic applications for touch sensitivity and dexterous manipulation.

If robots can "feel" the world, vision would not be nearly so important.

Touch sensors that are as cheap and functional as the one mentioned here will IMHO revolutionize robotic manipulation, and in turn, manufacturing and deployment of manufactured goods in unstructured settings (like doing plumbing).

Insects do really well relying a lot on touch.

While I don't follow that field very closely, it would seem to me that this invention could be game changing.

Also, one of the top priorities of a place like Willow Garage
    http://www.willowgarage.com/
is to make robots that can safely interact with humans an coexist in human space. Touch in an important part of that.

I expect to see a lot more invention along this line.