Achieving touch sensitivity was a critical question in terms of
advancing robotic technology. That appears to now be done and vastly
more useful devices will now emerge. We tend to underestimate just
how dependent we are on touch generally, but we use it constantly to
work with tools and would lose a large part of our own capacity
without is.
Tool use relies on sight and touch working in combination and it is
fair to give each equal weight.
In short, the brave new world of robotics is really upon us and it
will not prove too hard to even establish bio feedback for
prosthetics as this has already begun.
Astonishingly we are solving all the problems related to a true robot
as imagined in the past and even solving the problem of establishing
a real reason for their existence. None of that was terribly obvious
when the research began but progress has begun to steadily pay
dividends.
Robot 'Skin' Built
With Touch Superior to Humans
By Stephanie
Mlot
June 19, 2012 05:47pm
EST
Robots may not have a
sense of emotional feeling, but thanks to researchers at the
University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering,
they may soon have the gift of physical feeling.
With the right
sensors, actuators, and software, robots can be given the ability to
feel, or at least identify materials by touch, the school said.
Researchers today
published a study in Frontiers in Neurorobotics said
said a specially designed robot built to mimic the human fingertip
can actually outperform a living person in identifying a wide range
of materials, based on textures.
Biomedical Engineering
Professor Gerald Loeb and recently graduated doctoral student Jeremy
Fishel created the BioTac, a biologically inspired tactile sensor.
With their new technology, the researchers explored the robot hand's
ability to distinguish 117 common materials gathered from fabric,
stationary, and hardware stores. The robot's 99.6 percent performance
rate in correctly discriminating pairs of similar textures was better
than most humans would test, according to researchers.
While the machine is
good at identifying which textures are similar to each other, Loeb
and Fishel said it still can't tell what textures people will prefer.
Instead, success in the realm of touch-sensitive robotics could pave
the way for advancements in prostheses, personal assistive robots,
and consumer product testing, the university's press release said.
More than a one-trick
robot, the machine is capable of other human sensations, like
discerning where and in which direction forces are applied to the
fingertip, and even the thermal properties of an object. Fingerprints
on the surface of the BioTac sensor's soft, flexible "skin"
enhance its sensitivity to vibration.
What's next —robot
tear ducts? Or bionic ear drums?
In 2010, a team of
researchers from Cornell University, the University of Chicago, and
iRobot discovered a "universal gripper," built
out of a balloon and coffee grinds. The basic-science concept
enhanced the area of robotics, a University of Chicago physicist said
at the time.
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