Electronic Skin Gives Robots a Sense of Touch
- Analysis by Nic Halverson
Fri Jul 1, 2011 09:44 AM ET
Thanks to classic movies, many people view robots as clunky, lumbering galoots, knocking over lab racks and breaking through walls. While this image contrasts entirely with today's violin playing robots, still robots aren't typically known for their delicate sense of touch.
However, some researchers from the Technical University Munich (TUM) might be changing that stereotype. In their attempt to create a more sensitive robot, the team has produced small hexagonal plates that, when joined together, form a responsive robot skin.
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The artificial skin is composed of small, rigid hexagonal circuit boards. Each circuit board has four infrared sensors that detect anything that comes closer than a centimeter, effectively stimulating light touch. Therefore, the robot can detect when it runs into things and either retreat from the object or direct its eyes to better examine the object.
As well, TUM researchers have embedded the plates with six temperatures sensors and an accelerometer. Researchers say these add self-perception to the robot by allowing it to register individual limb movement.
“We try to pack many different sensory modalities into the smallest of spaces,” explained developer, Philip Mittendorfer, in a TUM press release. “In addition, it is easy to expand the circuit boards to later include other sensors, for example, pressure.”
Arranged in a honeycomb-like structure, the plates are worn by the robot. The signals from the sensors are centrally process, though each sensor also serves as a data nucleus for other sensory elements, ensuring that signals can be be rerouted in connections fail.
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"We will close the skin and generate a prototype which is completely enclosed with these sensors and can interact anew with its environment," said Mittendorfer's supervisor, Gordon Cheng, in the press release.
[Via GizMag]
Credit: Heddergott/TUM
Comments
Not really scary to me... Just reminds me of those days so long ago when they first started genetic engineering and all the mishaps while trying to cut off our 10 strands, eventually resulting in what we are today.
First step towards our replacement with something they can once again controle.
The sheer effort and amount of wealth put into these projects just show me how desperate They are.
How aware they are that the End is near
So to me.... Its actually a great sign.. A most beloved sign.. A wonderful confirmation..
you're talking my kind of language Ravinder.. I always thought that Replicants or Artificial Intelegence would be comming.. it may be a while away but I'll bet the GFL are laughing their asses off in Space at our feeble efforts at technology down here on Earth..
I often think our human attempts at technology must resemble clockwork toys to the stuff going on in the Universe, it makes me giggle to see them launching a shuttle into Space and all the effort that goes into getting such a heavy piece of machinery off the ground..
If they can get Robots to feel.. they can get em to see, to think.. like Blade Runner
.. by the way, congrats on the UFO sighting in London recently :) .. I've seen a few but never got em on film.. now I always keep my camera ready, just in case :)