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Robots Need Realistic Skin!
Without realistic robot skin, robots will never have that humanlike personal touch, and will not have the degree of social acceptance that we all want robots to have.
Yet, one should not easily assume that humans will be comfortable with the idea of shaking an artificial hand made from a stiff material and can grip with a force that can reach up to 100 Newtons. In addition to the appropriate controls for a safe handshake grip and other forms of social touch, humanlike skin softness would be a reasonable requirement for the sociable robots envisioned to directly interact with humans in a social setting.
Human skin has properties that are not easy to replicate in synthetics. The authors of the paper identified three specific qualities that must be replicated to give that genuine human skin feeling:
"Touch is important in social interactions. Social touch are all those instances in which people touch each other, when shaking hands, when giving a pat in the back as a sign of congratulations and even in high-fives. Unless some form of alternative greetings are invented in the future, the typical social touches exchanged among humans may likely remain even with social robots...
Yes, yes - I know what you're thinking. What about good old silicone and polyurethane? The authors test these simplistic skin substitutes and find them wanting. Take a look at their skin materials testing machine.
The degree to which skin can be deformed by a force.
The degree to which the shape of skin conforms to an object that it touches or rests upon.
The difference between the way it deforms and then reforms - how force applied to skin is dissipated.
(From Sociable robots and prosthetics [pdf])
Skip down to the link set within this article for the creepiest robot skin of all. Guaranteed to pass all tests.
Robots like the ones depicted in the upcoming film Surrogates would just be crude mechanical contraptions without convincing skin.
Find out more about various attempts to create more realistic humanlike robot skin:
- Artificial Skin Swatches Mass-Produced
This is the creepiest possibility of all. Use actual artificially-produced human skin to cover robots. - Robot Skin Soft Like Yours
Countless tiny hexagonal indentations etched into the urethane epidermis provide it with a very realistic texture. - Sensitive Artificial Skin For Humans, Not Robots
Now kindly DARPA boffins are making sure that human beings will also have sensitive artificial skin. - Robots Get Pressure-Sensitive Skin
Organic field-effect transistors and rubber pressure sensors are used to create a practical artifical skin. - E-Skin For Robots Stretches Like Yours
This new technology is flexible like rubber but has conductivity that is 570 times higher.
From Towards Humanlike Social Touch for Sociable Robotics and Prosthetics: Comparisons on the Compliance, Conformance and Hysteresis of Synthetic and Human Fingertip Skins (pdf) by John-John Cabibihan, Stéphane Pattofatto, Moez Jomâa, Ahmed Benallal and Maria Chiara Carrozza. Via Technology Review.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/24/2009)
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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.
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