Giving robots the sense of touch

The four-year funding under the EPSRC’s Fellowship for Growth programme has been won by Glasgow University’s Dr Ravinder Dahiya, a senior lecturer in electronic and nanoscale engineering. He is one of the academics from 10 UK universities to have been awarded a total of £13m to maintain the UK’s research leadership in advanced materials, robotic and autonomous systems, and synthetic biology.

According to the University, no robotics scientist has been able to create ultra-flexible tactile skin due to the sensor being too big or the electronics not sufficiently flexible.

Dr Dahiya, however, believes he has found a way of incorporating electronics and sensors on bendable silicon-based surfaces that will be 50 micrometers thick.

He will be working in collaboration with Prof Duncan Gregory, Chair in Inorganic Materials in the School of Chemistry, on the creation of silicon based nanowires which are printed on bendable substrates in a way that will eventually lead to flexible electronic or tactile skin with distributed sensors and electronics.