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 ")
Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?' - Philip K. Dick, 1954
Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...' - Isaac Asimov, 1942.
Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar
What's YOUR sarcasm setting?
Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin
'I am a cybernetic organism...' - Terminator, 1984.
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
Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
Space Exporers! Now, You Can Drink Your Own Urine
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar
What's YOUR sarcasm setting?
Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin
'I am a cybernetic organism...'
Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
GoSun EV Solar Charger Drapes Onto Your Car
'...six square yards of sunpower screens.'
Rizon 4 Ironing Robot
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'
Robot With Human Brain Organoid - 'A Thrilling Story Of Mechanistic Progress'
'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'
Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'
With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'
Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
