Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Robot Skin Detects Your Gentle Caress
Robots working with people need to be able to respond to the slightest touch, so they can react as you would expect a humanoid to react. Two new artificial skins for robots have recently been developed to make this a reality.
( Elastic polymer PDMS skin senses light objects)
Chemist Zhenan Bao at Stanford University, California, and her colleagues used the elastic polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)1. Bao took a piece of PDMS measuring six centimetres square with pyramid-shaped chunks cut out of it at regular intervals. When the PDMS is squashed, the pyramid-shaped holes that were previously filled with air become filled with PDMS, changing the device's capacitance, or its ability to hold an electric charge.To make it easier to detect the changes in capacitance, Bao stuck the PDMS capacitor onto an organic transistor, which can read out the differences as a change in current. The team used a grid of transistors to track pressure changes at different points across the material.
The PDMS-based skin is sensitive to the lightest of touches: Bao tested her device by placing a bluebottle fly and a butterfly on it, both of which were clearly 'felt'.
( The use of pressure-sensitive rubber makes this artifical skin flexible. )
Ali Javey at the University of California, Berkeley used semiconductor nanowires pulled into the shape of a grid using a technique called contact printing. The grid was then laid out on a flexible pressure-sensitive rubber — a material that changes its electrical resistance under pressure2.In the 7-centimetre-square grid, the criss-crossing nanowires act as transistors. Each transistor is like a pixel, and the pressure-induced current change at each individual position can be read out. And because it's made mainly of rubber, the device is bendy. "Because we're using very small inorganic semiconductors, the devices are very flexible," explains Javey. He has bent the sensor into a U-shape with each arm of the 'U' separated by a gap of just 5 millimetres and it still works.
Update 8-Dec-2011: In Roger Zelazny's Hugo award-winning 1966 novel This Immortal gives sf fans a glimpse of this idea. A wrestling robot uses special skin described as a radar mesentery to sense its opponent. End update.
For more exciting robot skin stories, gently caress these links:
- Robot Skin Soft Like Yours
The new artificial skin gives you that real human skin feeling... - Robots Need Realistic Skin!
The authors of the paper identified three specific qualities that must be replicated to give that genuine human skin feeling... - Underwater Robot With Touch Sensitive Skin
Comes in handy when lights serve little practical purpose in murky, sediment-laden water.... - E-Skin For Robots Stretches Like Yours
Stretchable e-skin for robots is being developed by Japanese researchers who apparently hate being touched by traditional rigid, metallicky robots....
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/13/2010)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Robotics ")
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.' - Aldo Giunta, 1957
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said. - Pournelle and Niven, 1981.
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
