Electronic Sensor Rivals Sensitivity of Human Skin

ananyo writes "A flexible electronic sensor made from interlocking hairs can detect the gentle steps of a ladybird and distinguish between shear and twisting forces. The sensor consists of two interlocking sheets of nanofibres. When the sensor sheet is pressed, twisted or brushed, the squishy, metal-coated hairs change position, generating changes in the sensor's electrical resistance (abstract). Such subtle tactile input would be very useful for robots designed to interact with people, says Matei Ciocarlie, a scientist at robotics company Willow Garage. 'Skin has been an overlooked part of robotics,' says Ciocarlie, because it poses such a challenging problem: in addition to being robust, sensitive and flexible, it needs to be made in very large sheets."

Comments

Just what we need...

[i kan reed]

Maybe now, at the airport, we can get a robot to feel my junk instead.

Re:Just what we need...

[Thundaaa Struk]

Can American Airlines have a queue for it's Executive Platinum members where they can get felt up by a robot with Asian women sized hands? It's the little things that count....right?

Re:Just what we need...

[EdIII]

I can see tech support now.

Tech Support - "Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on?"
Passenger - "It's crushing my fucking nuts!! I can't see shit man. Where's the fucking power button?!"
Tech Support - "Sir, I cannot help you if you continue to use such language. Please wait for a supervisor"
Supervisor - "What version of Windows are you using?"

Very nice

[Animats]

This is useful. There have been various other attempts at building a robot skin with sensors, but they haven't been very good. Arrays of pressure sensors, like a touch screen, have been built, but nothing has been good enough to be really useful.

Being able to sense shear forces is very useful when picking up something. One of the low-level reflexes in the body is the one that maintains contact with things you're holding, applying enough pressure to keep the object from slipping, but not much more than that. Robots need that, too.

Re:Very nice

[drinkypoo]

This is useful. There have been various other attempts at building a robot skin with sensors, but they haven't been very good. Arrays of pressure sensors, like a touch screen, have been built, but nothing has been good enough to be really useful.

The big problem with most of the solutions I've seen is that they wear out pretty fast. Skin is self-renewing, rubber isn't. But I wonder if a replaceable rubber skin and capacitance sensing won't wind up being the big winner.

Re:Very nice

[Ukab the Great]

A replaceable rubber sheath will decrease the sensitivity, and irresponsible robots in the heat of lifting boxes might forget to put it on in spite of the protection it provides.

sweet!

[uncanny]

Now they can feel simulated pain!

finally - better input

[just another AC]

everyone has always known, garbage in garbage out.
If we can get better quality inputs into robotics, it will make the processing steps much easier.

The amount of information that comes from touch... being deaf or blind is a disadvantage, but having no sense of touch would be absolutely crippling for a human!

I have great hope that this will be a huge leap forward when it goes into production.

Re:Careful euphemisms

[GodfatherofSoul]

Dude, you're not using your Cherry 500 correctly. You're not supposed to care about how it feels. Maybe in a later version...