Robot 'skin' senses touch and force
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Robotic devices that detect not only being touched but also where and how much force was applied are being developed by researchers in the US and the UK.
A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Media Lab have commissioned touch-technology material developer Peratech to create a new type of electronic ’skin’ that will give robots these enhanced capabilities.
The technology will allow robotic devices to better understand their presence and interaction with humans and other objects within a space. This is expected to become critically important as robotic devices become more a part of daily life.
Yorkshire-based Peratech has said that the key to its sensing technology is quantum tunnelling composite (QTC) materials. These composites provide a measured response to force and/or touch by changing electrical resistance. The technique is similar to how a dimmer switch controls a light bulb. This enables a simple electronic circuit within the robot to determine touch.
It is claimed that, unlike other touch-technology materials, QTCs provide a ’proportional’ response. In other words, they detect how hard they have been touched. Peratech also claims that, with its patented XY scanning technology, the robot is able to detect where it has been touched on a matrix of sensors.
The MIT Media Lab hopes that the results of integrating the QTC skin with its robots could be applied to a range of other robotics projects.
Peratech’s QTC technology has previously been adopted by NASA for its Robonaut device and by Shadow Robot in the UK, which is touted as the world’s most advanced robotic hand. The project with MIT is claimed to be a first in enabling a human to interact through touch across the body of a robot - much as they would with another human.
Readers' comments (1)
Shawn McAbee | 18 Aug 2010 11:33 pm
Artificial Touch Sensitive Tissue
Back in the mid – nineties I was working on many different theories and they relied on the need of a robotics sense of its environment. I came up with many designs but this one I have always wanted to test.
I will forgo the reasons why I have not for now.
By whatever means; laser, chemical etching, nano tech, ect. You’ll create a simple coil pattern on the base metal. Smaller around the fingers, larger in lower response areas. A thin coating is used to separate the coils from the base metal, the coil ending to connect with the base.
Mix a ferromagnetic (none magnetized powder) to the skin compound. Using an electromagnetic field to spread them evenly and point them in one direction.
After curing magnetize the ferromagnetic material.
Two layers n to n or s to s is used and depending in the formula of the skin the outer layer should respond to temperature before the enter layer giving a response to temperature.
The small coils should pick up the difference when the alignment of the magnetic field is disrupted.
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