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Cables For Robot Skin Will Stretch Like Human Skin
Thanks to the efforts of Asahi Kasei, the wired skin of robots will be more stretchy - in fact, it should be as stretchable as yours and mine.
(Cables For Robot Skin Will Stretch Like Human Skin)
Typically, for robots to be able to articulate their rigid joints, roboticists have to include extra, slack wiring to accommodate the movement. A stretchy cable is more forgiving, eliminating the need for some of that slack..."We thought, if we can make a cable that stretches by a factor of 1.5, it could be used for wearable electronics, or for wiring the skin of humanoid robots," Shunji Tatsumi of Asahi Kasei Fibers told Diginfo TV, in one of the latter's trademarked deadpan video reports.
In his 1966 novel This Immortal, sf author Roger Zelzny refers to the "piezo-electric radar mesentery skin" of a wrestling robot named "Rolem", the putty-colored skin of which stretched as needed while fighting an opponent.
It doesn't really "see" its opponent with those eye-things it has; it's all sheathed about with piezo-electric radar mesentery, and it "watches " from all its surfaces.
Via Technology Review.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/10/2011)
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